Geography Reference
In-Depth Information
improvements by manufacturers, it is salutary to remember the importance of gov-
ernment regulations in leading car manufacturers to adopt these new engine ef-
ficiency and emissions standards. For example in the EU, fuel consumption targets
for 2015 have been set at 5.6 L/100 km, with lower levels of 4.9 for diesel. These
are the average levels for a manufacturers' fleet, with further reductions planned for
the future. Credits can be obtained for hybrid and electric cars with emissions under
50 g/km, by counting each vehicle as a double in production figures, providing an
incentive for them to develop cars that do not only depend on internal combustion
engines. In terms of carbon dioxide emissions the recognition that 12 % of its total
output in the EU came from cars, led to legislation to reduce this pollutant. Also,
an average emissions level of 130 gms/km has to be attained for the total numbers
of car produced by each manufacturer by 2015, although very small manufacturers
are exempted. A phase-in period to reach this level was added, so that 65 % of the
fleet must comply to this level by 2012 and 80 % by 2014, with further reductions
to 95 g/km for 2020 (EC-climate 2013). In North America there are also agreements
on similar progressive targets for engine efficiency and carbon dioxide reductions,
but these were not implemented without opposition. In the 1970s the major car
companies opposed the emissions standards proposed by the state of California, but
lost the resultant court case, which meant they had to conform to the regulations.
5.7.5
Taxes and Emission Reductions
An alternative approach to reducing greenhouse gas emissions involves a govern-
ment imposing a carbon tax on all large industrial plants, a tax that varies with
the size of their carbon emissions. This is designed to persuade companies to use
new processes to reduce their emissions, which will then lead to a lower tax. Some
governments use the tax to fund new environmental initiatives. One of the weak-
nesses of these taxes is that it is not always easy to set a tax level which will have
the desired effect; too low will not change behaviour, too high and it could penalize
competitiveness and led to economic losses, which is the reason why it has pro-
voked a lot of opposition from the large resource companies. So far, opinions about
the use of such taxes in various jurisdictions have been mixed, yet there are cases
where the tax approach has worked. For example, the province of British Colum-
bia in Canada introduced a carbon tax in 2008, admittedly at a relatively low level
initially, on a revenue-neutral basis, meaning that the money raised was used to
reduce other taxes. This seems to have garnered widespread public support. The tax
increased from its initial $ 5 base to $ 30 in 2012, and is predicted to remove 3 mil-
lion t of annual carbon dioxide emissions by 2020, the equivalent of the emissions
from 787,000 cars per year (Gass and Sawyer
2012
). But elsewhere, this type of tax
has led to a great deal of opposition. For example the conservative government in
Australia elected in September 2013 vowed to repeal a carbon tax imposed on the
large industrial polluters by the preceding Labour administration and quickly did so.
