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.”
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