Tough targets

Obama's fuel efficiency targets may be historic but are they groundbreaking, asks Alan Whitehead

Barack Obama has described his 20 May announcement on tough targets for future fuel efficiency in US vehicles as ‘historic’. It certainly is that. It will, it is estimated, cut the emissions from new US vehicles by over a third by 2016. But are the proposals groundbreaking as well? Has the US now leapt ahead in policies for low carbon vehicles? And should the UK now be following suit?

It is fair to say that the proposals catch up a long way with where we are in Europe, but they are probably not the answer or anywhere near the answer for future vehicles. Part of the problem of making sense of vehicle emission policy is that different countries are pursuing different standards as they seek to place targets on manufacturers. The EU proposals, now agreed in principle and likely to emerge from the co-decision-making process are based on emissions per kilometre, and not on miles per gallon. Of course those targets will entail future cars being far more fuel efficient as well, but the EU goals require much more fundamental re-engineering than simple fuel efficiency. EU targets are for average emissions from new cars to be cut to 130grams per kilometre by 2015 (from about 130 grams now), and 95 grams by 2020. This is radical to the extent that by 2020 the average will be set at the lowest emissions currently achieved by any petrol or diesel car on the road currently.

Setting a target at fuel efficiency only is far more easily within the reach of manufacturers - lean burn technology and power conservation will go most of the way, but for all that such a significant dip in the USA’s enormous consumption of fuel when previously it has been going rapidly in the opposite direction will be welcome, and symbolically, is an important indication that at last the US is taking CO2 emission reduction seriously and will be able to sit in climate change discussions on a world stage without all the other participants laughing. The measures, especially when set alongside the US climate change bill going through Congress against the dogged resistance of republicans, do mark a near revolutionary departure from the Bush era of climate change denial.

But we should be clear: the verdict has to be: far, far better, but no cigar (even if it turns out to be a Havana). This is for two central reasons. Firstly, the combination of longer US mileage per vehicle per year than in Europe and the fuel inefficiency of its vehicles means that currently the US emits from road transport alone some 150% more carbon dioxide than the entire UK output from all sources. A reduction of a third in these emissions still leaves the US a huge transport emitter in the absence of further measures, and way off any achievable target as part of any international agreement. Secondly, the continued growth of US road transport as a mode means that by 2020 most of this gain will be eaten up, at fuel efficiencies only marginally better than the average on UK roads now.

The emissions that will remain ‘out there’ between now and 2050 are the central issue for any targets. The UK’s climate change target of an 80% reduction on 1990 levels by 2050 means progressively the almost complete decarbonisation of transport, unless gains in other areas are set back by continued carbon levels emitted by the sector. That means, within a very few years far, far lower average emissions even than the 95 grams per kilometre in store for 2020. Only hybrids, hydrogen or electric vehicles are likely to be able to achieve that and the intervention in the development of electric vehicles announced in the UK budget, tentative though it can be painted as, points firmly in the direction of that recognition. Electric vehicles are only as CO2 clean as the source that supplies their electricity, but at least they work with the direction of clean energy sources, rather than against them.

Betting the house on fuel efficiency is, therefore, not a realistic long-term strategy. As a starter to begin the retreat from the US love affair with the gas-guzzler however, it is creditable. The resistance in the US to the 20 May announcement has initially been surprisingly muted. When Obama has to take the next steps, as he surely must, the American car-driving public may be in a less receptive mood.

Alan Whitehead is MP for Southampton Test and Parliamentary Coordinator of SERA

27 May 2009 17:41

 

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