For Australia’s new car emissions cap, the devil’s in the details
Last month the federal government’s proposed fuel efficiency plans received ‘overwhelming support’. Now eyes are turning to the fine print.
Fuel efficiency standards apply to 85% of the global car market. And mandatory limits on the carbon emissions of new cars were introduced in the US half a century ago.
But of the world’s developed (OECD member) countries, only Australia, along with Russia, doesn’t have them.
Policy efforts to introduce a standard in Australia can be traced back to 2008. However, with consecutive governments ignoring calls for action made by two separate independent inquiries - and Scott Morrison labelling the idea a “carbon tax” on cars as recently as 2019 - progress has left the country back of the pack internationally.
Research from The Australia Institute found that if fuel efficiency standards had been introduced in 2016, 9 million tonnes of CO2 would have been prevented (the equivalent of an entire year’s worth of emissions from domestic aviation) and $5.9 billion in fuel costs would have been saved.
