A lobby group is calling for the Federal Government to introduce best practice vehicle emissions standards in Australia.
ClimateWorks is calling for the Federal Government to introduce vehicle emissions standards in Australia. In a statement, Scott Ferraro, ClimateWorks Australia, Head of Implementation said, the fuel efficiency of Australian cars was not improving fast enough and already lagged improvement rates of new cars in Europe and the United States.
“The improvement in fuel efficiency of new cars in Australia has dropped to its lowest rate over the last 10 years, with improvement of only 1.1 per cent achieved in 2016 compared to an improvement rate of 4.2 per cent in 2006 and 3.7 per cent in 2012,” he said.
“The national average carbon emissions intensity from new passenger and light commercial vehicles is down to 182g/km in 2016, which is only a slight improvement from 184g/km in 2015.
“Australia is currently well behind the European Union in terms of performance, with their 2016 average emissions intensity for passenger vehicles of 118gCO2/km, and they have a target to get to 95gCO2/km by 2021. Even the US market is targeting approximately 105gCO2/km by 2025, which is over a 4 per cent annual improvement.
“The Federal Government is currently considering the introduction of CO2 emissions standards through the Ministerial Forum on Vehicle Emissions. A range of stakeholders have expressed support for the introduction of standards including the Business Council of Australia, AGL, health groups, Bosch and a range of state and local governments,” he said.
“Some groups argue that fuel quality in Australia is not of a significant level to allow for the advanced technology needed to meet the fuel efficiency gains proposed by the Government. However, the International Council on Clean Technology has stated that ‘the present fuel quality in Australia is not a hindrance to lowering CO2 emissions from new light vehicles’.
“International experience also shows that the introduction of standards should be accompanied by the introduction of complementary measures to help drive demand for low emission vehicles. This includes consumer education programs as well as upfront and tax incentives for low and zero emission vehicles.”
Now that we, the newest third world country, no longer make cars, I really don’t care what they do. I will be driving, maintaining and upgrading my Aussie cars. Just an opinion of a once proud sheila.
What Australian cars? They’ll be zero polluters after October.