Greener Cars for All

An updated report from the California Air Resources Board, the state body responsible for setting and enforcing vehicle emission standards, shows that if Canada adopted California’s tailpipe emissions rules, we would prevent 51% more tailpipe emissions by 2020 than we would by adopting the U.S. federal standard (for the U.S., the figure is 41% greater reductions).

This isn’t small potatoes – the 87 million tonnes of greenhouse gas emissions we would avoid by 2020 is the equivalent of taking every passenger vehicle in Canada off the road for a year.

The report concludes: “In short, the benefits of the Pavley (California) rules, whether implemented in California, the United States, or Canada, are clearly greater than those provided by the proposed federal fuel economy rules, both in terms of GHG emissions reductions and fuel savings.”

So far, 18 states representing almost half the U.S. population have adopted or announced plans to adopt the California tailpipe rules. In Canada, 12 of 13 provinces and territories have expressed support for California standards, while Ontario has said they will accept whatever is the dominant North American standard.

Ontario is, understandably, concerned about the impact on auto industry jobs as we move away from gas guzzlers – a trend currently driven by high gas prices rather than environmental rules. I won’t repeat what I’ve already written about how a forward-looking strategy would get those laid-off workers the new ‘green collar’ jobs doing the work necessary to stop climate change.

But there have been a couple of recent developments on this front. South of the border, Presidential hopeful Barack Obama went into the heart of the U.S. auto industry last week and said “I don’t think that we need to give up on manufacturing. We need to find new sources of manufacturing jobs. And I think creating green energy jobs and helping the auto industry to retool — those are all areas with enormous promise.”

Similar sentiments were expressed by Canadian anti-poverty groups, who recently made the case for good, green jobs as a way of reducing poverty.

High gas prices aren’t going away, and neither is the climate crisis. So let’s make gas guzzlers the museum pieces they deserve to be.

by Keith Stewart