Go Green Save the World Save the Children
At one point last year when the financial crisis transformed into an economic one I was discussing with my environmentalist friends the possible effects over the environment. We split between the following three – the drop of industrial production will have a beneficial effect; the lack of resources will discourage scientific research and this will damage the pro-green efforts in the long run; politicians will be preoccupied with bailing out companies and saving jobs and will lack the time and will to deal with climate change. What is unfolding now is a combination of the three, but the recent news make me think the efforts to reverse climate change are still on top of the agenda.
Yesterday president Obama announced an ambitions plan for car emission cuts in the US. The plan will make car-manufacturers produce vehicles that run at least 35 miles per gallon on average with current standards being 25 miles per gallon. This means that all SUVs, ATVs, cars and motorbikes will run at an average cost of around 6,7 liters per km. This is indeed a major step in the US legislation, especially considering that it took 30 years for the US to adopt its first car efficiency bill 18 months ago. Only half a year later we see a significant improvement in standards and also a requirement for increase of car efficiency by 5% annually. This is good for three reasons
Manufacturers have clear standards and know what their limitations are in the long run
Drivers will use more efficient cars and spend less on oil, which they certainly look forward to after the record prices of 4 USD per gallon from 2007
Less fuel will be spent and the car emissions will be cut by 1/3 by 2016.
The so called California standards introduced long ago by the Governor Schwarzenegger are now embraced by the biggest economy in the world. As we can see the new American president keeps the environment high on the agenda, as he pledged in his election campaign So far car manufacturers such as Ford have been producing energy efficient cars for Europe and Japan but still have not applied green standards for the US market. Now such companies will have the opportunity to be leaders, while others will start new investment programs. In fact it is the US government that starts these programs, as it already has a lot of control over the car-manufacturing industry in the US because of the crisis.
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