What An Environmental Expert Has to Say About the Proposed Climate Action Amendment Bill

Banning the registration of new fossil fuel cars from 2030 and stopping the NCTs on all fossil fuel cars from 2045 are some of the ways that the Climate Action Amendment Bill 2019 aims to deliver a radical reduction in Irish greenhouse gas emissions. However, we must ask the question, are electric vehicles really the more eco-friendly option?

“Banning the sale of petrol and diesel cars from 2030, should genuinely reduce greenhouse gas emissions. However, we need to ensure that our electricity grid emission factor is much lower than it is today as nett emissions likely increase if all our cars are electrically driven.”  These are the words of Fergal Mee, Environmental Director at Carbon Action. This was Fergal’s response when asked his opinion on the proposed bill banning the sale of new fossil fuel cars in Ireland by 2030.

Building electric cars creates more greenhouse-gas emissions than producing an equivalent gas-powered vehicle. Electric car manufacturing in China has shown that GHG emissions from production of EVs is about 14.6 tonnes of GHG per vehicle.  For the equivalent sized petrol car the GHG emissions are 9.1 tonnes of GHG per vehicle.

The Construction of batteries for electric cars also has significant downsides in terms of environmental degradation in South America and Africa. Read our recent article here “Are Electric Vehicles Really The More Eco-friendly Option?”

Read More:

• Carbon Calculators – How Accurate Can They Be?
• Environmental Impact Assessments
• ISO 14064-1 – Carbon Emissions Training

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