Consumers' growing awareness about the hot issue of climate change has provided a boost to sales of environment-friendly cars that produce low carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions.

Trafi, transport safety agency of Finland, said that sales of less CO2 emission producing vehicles increased by around 33 per cent last year, even as overall car sales remained weak. Cars producing emissions less 100 grams per kilometer were found to be very popular.

Markus Mäkitalo, sales director at Herttoniemi's Veljekset Laakkonen car dealership, said, "It's becoming more and more important for consumers to know how much CO2 a car produces as well as how economically- and environmentally-efficient it is."

Trafi said a new record was set in March this year when the carbon emissions average of newly registered cars slipped to just 129.2 grams per kilometer. It was the second time in the past twelve years that the European Union's goal of decreasing carbon emissions slipped below 130 grams per kilometer. In November last year, the record was broken for the first time in Finland, where the average reading was recorded at 129.5 grams per kilometers.

When the Finnish traffic safety regulator had started gathering statistics in 2006, new cars in the country had an average reading of 180 grams per kilometer.

The U. S. Defense Department's 2014 Quadrennial Defense Review termed climate change as another significant challenge for whole world; while John Kerry recently described global warming/climate change as 'the world's most fearsome weapon of mass destruction'.