31 countries including India and 6 countries including GM agree on decarbonization targets by 2040
Major companies such as Toyota, Volkswagen, and Hyundai Motor Company and China, the US, Japan and Germany are not in attendance
Six major automakers, including General Motors (GM), have agreed to phase out production of fossil fuel-powered vehicles with internal combustion engines by 2040, the British government said in a statement on the 10th (local time).
According to Reuters, GM, Ford, Mercedes-Benz, Volvo, China’s BYD, and Jaguar Land Rover made the following announcements after the 26th United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (COP26) transport meeting held in Glasgow on the same day. issued a joint statement of Automakers participating in the statement accounted for about a quarter of global sales in 2019. Scania, a company that produces trucks and industrial diesel engines, and DHL, a transportation company, have committed to eliminating carbon emissions from all new vehicles by 2040.
Twenty-four car operators, including ride-hailing company Uber, also joined the agreement and promised to operate only carbon-free vehicles by 2030.
Thirty-one countries and hundreds of cities, including the UK, Canada, India and the Netherlands, have also joined the declaration to end the sale of carbon-emitting vehicles by 2040. India is the fourth largest automobile market in the world.
The agreement is considered to have formalized the promise to stop the production and use of internal combustion engine vehicles and switch to non-fossil fuel vehicles, such as electric vehicles, in line with the carbon-neutral trend of the international community. British Transport Minister Grant Sapps said it was “a turning point in the transition to clean road transport”.
According to the International Energy Agency (IEA), carbon emissions from the transportation sector, such as automobiles, trucks, ships, buses, and airplanes, account for about a quarter of total emissions, and about half of this comes from automobiles. The European Commission has also proposed a ban on fossil fuel vehicles by 2035.
However, there are many major companies and countries that did not participate in the signing, raising questions about its effectiveness. The world’s first and second largest automakers, Toyota, Volkswagen, and fourth-ranked Stellantis, as well as Honda, Nissan, BMW, and Hyundai, were not named in the statement. China, the world’s largest automobile market, the United States, the world’s second largest, and Japan and Germany, the third largest, also did not sign.
“The transition to non-fossil fuel vehicles requires expensive technology, but the government’s lack of commitment to building the necessary infrastructure to support electric vehicles has made companies wary of such signatures,” an auto industry official told Reuters.
“For this announcement to be credible, it will need the participation of major automakers, including Germany and the US,” said Juan Pablo Osornio, COP26 Greenpeace delegation head. said
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