Environmental, government and motor industry experts from leading emerging economies, including China, India and Mexico, will join experts and officials from the US, Japan and the EU to discuss the potential of a global framework for vehicle fuel economy at an FIA Foundation seminar next month.
The FIA Foundation symposium ‘Towards a Global Approach to Fuel Economy’, held in partnership with the International Energy Agency (IEA), United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) and the International Transport Forum (ITF), will bring together a very high level panel to explore ways to improve fuel efficiency across the global vehicle parc. Speakers at the symposium will include the IEA Executive Director, Nobuo Tanaka; ITF Secretary General Jack Short; and UNEP’s Director of Technology Sylvie Lemmet. The UK Special Envoy on Climate Change, John Ashton, is one of the governmental participants, with officials from the US and Mexican governments, and from the European Commission, also taking part.
The FIA Foundation’s Environment Director, Sheila Watson, explained the background to the seminar:
“We need to reduce the carbon impact of driving. With the world motor vehicle fleet forecast to double over the next twenty years and growing international concern about the combined challenges of improving air quality, avoiding dangerous climate change, and reducing fossil fuel consumption, automotive fuel economy is now a major issue confronting the world community, especially the G8 leading industrialized countries, the European Union, and the world’s rapidly motorizing nations such as China and India.”
“To date policies to promote fuel economy have been developed mainly at a national or regional level, such as the EU Voluntary Agreement.. However, as the trends of globalization of the motor vehicle industry increase, there is potential to develop a more global approach to automotive fuel economy to encourage technology transfer and cost effectiveness in a growing global market for both cleaner and less carbon intensive motor vehicles. Such a sectoral approach could also be relevant to the post 2012 Kyoto protocol discussions within the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change.”
“To be effective, any attempts to reduce the carbon footprint of motoring have to be realistic and relevant to the situation in hand. The largest part of fleet growth over the next 50 years will be in the emerging economies. We should be aiming for policies that encourage reduced car use and promote behaviour change so that we only own and drive cars where it is absolutely necessary. But the political, economic and social realities in many rapidly developing countries are such that very large fleet growth is all but unavoidable. The challenge then is whether to stand back in righteous indignation, or whether to engage positively to maximize the availability of safe, clean, low carbon vehicles. It is in this context that the setting of a series of global standards, for example for fuel economy, could have a crucial role to play in ensuring that when vehicle growth occurs it is as fuel efficient as possible.”
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