The UK government has agreed to work towards the goal of ensuring that all new cars, buses, and vans sold in 2050 are electrics as part of a new initiative that’s being supported by Norway, Holland, and Germany as well, according to recent reports.
These national commitments to the new initiative were accompanied by regional commitments from the US states of California, New York, Connecticut, Oregon, Maryland, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and Vermont; as well as from the Canadian province of Quebec.
The Zero Emission Vehicle (ZEV) Alliance — as it’s been dubbed — also calls for the governments involved to pool “best practices” and research findings in order to better make progress on the achievement of the alliance’s goal.
The UK’s Transport Minister, Andrew Jones, commented that the new alliance would help the UK continue growing its “zero emission vehicle” market — currently one of the fastest growing in the world.
“The UK already has the largest market for ultra-low emission vehicles in the EU, and the fourth largest in the world, and today’s pledge reaffirms our commitment to ensuring almost every car and van is a zero emission vehicle by 2050,” he noted. “Electric cars are cheaper and greener to run and we are making them more affordable, spending more than £600 million between 2015 and 2020 to support the uptake and manufacturing of ultra-low emission vehicles here in the UK.
“By leading international efforts on this issue, we are playing our part in helping achieve greenhouse gas emission reductions of more than one billion tonnes per year across the world by 2050.”
Image Credit: © Michal Wnuk