Germany is considering achieving carbon emissions cuts by including carmakers in the European Union's emission trading scheme, which currently applies only to heavy industry, deputy economy minister Joachim Wuermeling told the Berliner Zeitung.

If brought into the carbon trading market, automakers that exceeded set standards would have to buy emissions rights from groups that emitted less pollution, thus encouraging them to develop ways of cutting CO2 emissions.

Wuermeling said it would be a way of forcing carmakers to conform with an EU plan to cut average emissions of carbon dioxide -- the form of emissions most harmful to the environment -- to 120 grammes per kilometre by 2012, from about 160 grammes at present.

"We have the choice between sanctions or participation in the European emissions market," he told the Berliner Zeitung.

The EU Commission says it will present a new draft of its proposal in December.

But car groups at this week's Frankfurt motor show have called on the EU to wait until at least 2015 before enacting the measure, and Wuermeling said he expected they would have to be forced to fall into line.

An industry analyst told the newspaper that levying a tax would push up the prices of high-performance and high-emitting cars like Porsches and Mercedes by several thousand euros (dollars).

A press report said Friday that Porsche might take legal action if the EU pushes through the proposed CO2 emissions limits.

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