Industry News
General Motors joins U.S. Climate Action Partnership
9th May 2007
General Motors is to join the United States Climate Action Partnership (USCAP), becoming the first vehicle manufacturer to support the non-partisan group’s call for action to address climate change through advanced technology and on an economy-wide, market-driven basis.
USCAP, a partnership of companies representing key sectors of the economy and non-government organizations, issued earlier this year a set of principles and recommendations toward slowing, stopping and reversing the growth of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions over the shortest period of time reasonably achievable.
USCAP’s recommendations are based on the following six principles: Account for the global dimensions of climate change; Recognize the importance of technology; Be environmentally effective; Create economic opportunity and advantage; Be fair to sectors disproportionately impacted; and, Recognize and encourage early action.
“GM is very pleased to join USCAP in proactively addressing the concerns posed by climate change,” said Rick Wagoner, GM chairman and CEO. “The key as we see it is energy diversity – being able to offer our customers vehicles that can be powered by many different energy sources and advanced propulsion systems to help displace petroleum and reduce greenhouse gas emissions. We especially applaud USCAP for recognizing the important role that technology can play in achieving an economy-wide solution.”
GM views the need to promote energy security and reduce greenhouse gas emissions as both a business necessity and an obligation to society."
As a full-line automaker, GM is pursuing energy diversity across its product line-up, and says it builds more vehicles that achieve over 30 mpg on the highway than any competitor. In addition to its efforts to displace traditional petroleum-based fuels with biofuels like E85, GM say it is significantly expanding and accelerating the development of electrically driven vehicles, including hybrids, plug-in hybrids, fuel-cells and extended-range electric vehicles.
GM believes its approach offers a more effective solution than the current Corporate Average Fuel Economy (CAFE) program that, over the course of more than 30 years, has fallen dramatically short of its stated goals. Since CAFE was enacted, both the number of vehicles on the road and the number of vehicle miles travelled have nearly doubled. During this same three decade period, U.S. gasoline consumption has increased by 60% and U.S. oil imports have increased by more than 100%. These increases have occurred despite the fact that automakers as a whole have increased new vehicle fleet fuel economy for light trucks by 60%, and more than doubled it for passenger cars—with GM claiming to have improved its fuel economy more than any other major auto manufacturer.
Over the last several weeks several other companies including insurance group AIG, Alcan, Dow Chemical, Deere & Co., Johnson & Johnson, PepsiCo and Shell have joined US CAP, whose member companies have a combined market cap of US$1.9 trillion.
(GM 8 May, Planet Ark/Reuters, 9 May)
News Headlines
