GLOBE-Net, December 20, 2011.
California's Air Resources Board (ARB) is proposing
new rules to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from
vehicles.
The new rules aim to put 1.4
million electric, plug-in and hydrogen cars on California roads by
2025. In terms of GHG emissions, the ARB expects the regulation to
result in a 75% reduction by 2025, which would be an absolute
reduction of 52 million tons of GHGs - the equivalent of taking
ten million cars off the road.
When the program is fully
implemented, the annual fuel costs to operate a car will be reduced
by an average of 25 percent, with an overall cumulative savings of
$22 billion by 2025. Economic analysis by the ARB indicates that
the overall savings generated by the proposed rules will result in
an additional 21,000 jobs in California in 2025, rising to 37,000
in 2030.
California is acting
independently of US federal legislation. BC faces a similar
situation, as it does not look likely that Ottawa will take any
substantive action to address climate change.
Due to BC's abundance of
available clean energy, plug-in electric vehicles have the
potential to significantly reduce greenhouse gas emissions from the
transportation sector.
The
Plug-in BC Working Group recently announced a host of
provincial programs to support increased use of clean energy
vehicles (CEV) in BC. The CEV for BC program includes point of sale
incentives (ranging from $2,500-$5,000 depending on vehicle type),
and a residential rebate ($500 per station) for purchases of
qualifying EV charging equipment.
The provincial CEV strategy
also includes an Infrastructure Deployment
Demonstration Project, which involves funding for
400-1000 EV charging stations across the province.
PICS News Scan - 20
December 2011 - Produced by ISIS, Sauder School of Business,
UBC