Transport sector of Australia has been significantly lacking in taking efforts for curbing carbon emissions. This in turn has been casting doubts on the lax of the government and at times also has a deceptive approach towards decreasing greenhouse gas pollution. Earlier this week, IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) has indicated that global warming would hit the plant significantly harder compared to any predictions so far. Worldwide action is the need of the hour to fend off worst of it.
Government has claimed that it can deal with its carbon emission issues by scaling up the existing emission policies. However, in one of its sector, these emission policies has been significantly lacking. Australia is one amongst the few OECD countries that does not have any greenhouse gas emissions standards for automobiles, despite of the transport being listed by Environment and Energy Department 2017 emissions projections as 3rd highest contributor to greenhouse gas outputs in 2017.
Ministerial forum has been developed that include the entire government approach for dealing with the transport emissions, however the forum still lacks in delivering a firm solution to the issue. One of the spokesperson had stated that the government till date has not reached a decision on how many measures must be implemented. The former year witnessed addition of 96million tonnes of the carbon towards atmosphere by the transport sector. Most of all, this figure is expected to increase to 112million tonnes by 2030, which in turn makes it the 2nd largest emitter behind the electricity generation as well as the highest growing emitter too.
Uptake of Electric Vehicles to Gradually Benefit Australia in Curbing Carbon Emissions
On a global basis, the approach of Australia towards transportation has also been viewed poorly. According to 2018 report from the US energy ACEEE (American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy), Australia ranks 20th in transport efficiency, which in turn makes it one amongst the lowest scoring nations. Australia cat present is the only nation that lacks in fuel economy standards for passenger vehicles. However, the nation has been planning to adopt electric vehicle that would be turn out to be a seismic change for country’s greenhouse gas emissions.
Lack of fuel economy standards to significantly hamper the initiative of eliminating carbon emissions in Australia. However, uptake of electric vehicles might pave notable avenues for Australia’s transportation sector to rise its position in the curbing of greenhouse gas emissions.
Summary: Australia is one amongst the few OECD countries that does not have any greenhouse gas emissions standards for automobiles