The International Energy Agency suggests 40 per cent of new passenger vehicle sales must be electric by 2040 in order to limit global warming to two degrees Celsius.

The International Energy Agency suggests 40 per cent of new passenger vehicle sales must be electric by 2040 in order to limit global warming to two degrees Celsius.
Photo Credit: Hannah Yoon/Canadian Press

Canada not doing enough to foster electric cars: report

University researchers have given Canada a C- in their report card on efforts to promote the use of electric vehicles (EV) to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. This they translate as the country having policies that have a “marginal” impact on long-term EV sales.

In the report card issued by Simon Fraser University’s Sustainable Transportation Action Research Team, six out of 10 Canadian provinces got a failing grade for efforts to get electric vehicles on the road. The highest grade was a B- for the province of Quebec which recently announced that manufacturers will have to sell a minimum market share of zero-emission vehicles by 2025.

Ontario offers to offset higher cost of EVs

The province of Ontario is looking at offering an $8,000 to $12,000 financial incentive for those who buy EVs and it has earned a grade of C. British Columbia was next with a C-. Prof. Jonn Axsen, co-author of the study, says Canada must reform transportation if it hopes to meet commitments it made in the Paris climate agreement.

Listen

“We are releasing it (the report card) to try to get attention across the different provinces and also federally to try and…put our money where our mouth is as a country—to say ‘okay…if we do want to reduce our greenhouse gas emissions and if we do want to transition our transportation sector to get away from oil, let’s look at the policies that we have in place and see if those are good enough to get where we’re going.’

Looking for ‘a more productive dialogue’

“I’m really hoping this starts a more productive dialogue about what we need to do to get to the transition that we want to see.”
column-banner-lynn

Categories: Environment & Animal Life, Politics, Society
Tags:

Do you want to report an error or a typo? Click here!

For reasons beyond our control, and for an undetermined period of time, our comment section is now closed. However, our social networks remain open to your contributions.