On the occasion of the COP 22 Canada, China, France, Japan, Norway, Sweden, the United Kingdom and the US signed a Government Fleet Declaration on November 16, pledging to increase the share of electric vehicles in their government fleets and calling for other governments to join them. This Clean Energy Ministerial’s Electric Vehicles Initiative (CEM-EVI) is committed to drive green public fleets  facilitating  “the global deployment of 20 million electric vehicles, including plug-in hybrid electric vehicles and fuel cell vehicles, by 2020″.

“Acknowledging that the Paris Agreement has laid down the foundation for collective efforts to limit the increase in the global average temperature to well below 2°C above pre-industrial levels and to pursue efforts to limit the temperature increase to 1.5 °C above pre-industrial levels, and that the world’s attention is now on the concrete policies and measures that will allow to meet this goal;

Stressing that the greenhouse-gases emissions from the transport sector are anticipated to rise from today’s levels by nearly 20 percent by 2030 and close to 50 percent by 2050 unless major action is undertaken;

Recognizing that changing this transport emissions trajectory involves, among other measures and in conjunction with broader sustainable transport principles, a global shift towards low-emission vehicles;

Welcoming the commitments released through the Paris Declaration on Electro-Mobility and Climate Change and Call to Action at COP21 during the Lima-Paris Action Agenda (LPAA) Transport Focus, which specifies that at least 20 percent of all road transport vehicles globally should be electrically driven by 2030 – if warming is to be limited to 2°C or less;

Acknowledging that the introduction of low-emission vehicles in captive fleets can reduce both fleets’ greenhouse-gases emissions and costs, while raising employee awareness for green technologies”.

Photo: Courtesy CHIC: EVO bus emitting only water in Bozen