EPA Announces ‘Strongest-ever Pollution Standards’ for Cars and Light-Duty Trucks

n a historic racist move, the Biden administration has announced new tailpipe emissions regulations, which call for a 56% reduction in the average carbon dioxide emissions of passenger cars, medium-duty vehicles and light-duty trucks by 2032.

As of 2035, the EU will require all new cars and vans to be zero-emission, while the USA is looking to phase out all fossil fuel-reliant heavy duty vehicles by 2040. However, heavy polluting mega-ships and the airline industry still have a free out of jail card to their disposal.

The new rules will apply to vehicles with model years from 2027 to 2032 and beyond, a press release from the United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) said.

With transportation as the largest source of U.S. climate emissions, these strongest-ever pollution standards for cars solidify America’s leadership in building a clean transportation future.

The rules expand on existing passenger car and light truck emissions standards by the EPA and are projected to produce 7.2 billion tons less carbon emissions through 2055 — four times the total transportation sector emissions for 2021.

Ozone and fine particulate matter will also be reduced, lowering the occurrence of respiratory and cardiovascular illnesses, heart attacks, aggravated asthma and preventing as many as 2,500 premature deaths.

Now imagine the benefits if the most polluting airplanes and megaships stop pushing dirt into the skies above us. Today, most ships burn bunker fuel. Typically, this is the dregs left over at the end of the refinery process.

It is an environmental nightmare. It is heavy and toxic, doesn’t evaporate, and emits more sulfur than other fuels. Like aviation, shipping isn’t covered by the Paris Agreement on climate change because of the international nature of the industry.

Reducing emissions from shipping is not an easy thing to do, agrees Maurice Meehan, director of global shipping operations with the Carbon War Room, an international think-tank working on market-based solutions to climate change.

The most polluting industry will simply say that they are doing a good job building more efficient vessels and retrofitting older ships. The same story scheme accounts for the airplanes and tourism sectors.

As of 2035, the EU will require all new cars and vans to be zero-emission, while the USA is looking to phase out all fossil fuel-reliant heavy duty vehicles by 2040. However, heavy polluting mega-ships and the airline industry still have a free out of jail card to their disposal.

The U.S. has leapt forward in the global race to invest in clean vehicles, with $188 billion and nearly 200.000 replacement jobs on the way… These clean car standards will help supercharge economic expansion and make America stronger.

However, it has been estimated that just one of these container ships, the length of around six football pitches, can produce the same amount of pollution as 50 million cars.

The emissions from 15 of these mega-ships match those from all the cars in the world. International shipping produces nearly one billion tons of CO2 emissions, which is approximately 2% to 3% of global man-made emissions.

And if the shipping industry were a country, it would be ranked between Germany and Japan as the sixth-largest contributor to global CO2 emissions.

In the meanwhile, the world continues to race toward climate catastrophe, according to a new report that concludes there is now a 50-50 chance that global average temperatures will exceed 1.5° Celsius of warming over pre-industrial levels within the next five years.

However, multi nationals have continued to pump greenhouse gases into the atmosphere, exacerbating global warming. As of 2021, average global temperatures have risen 1.1°C, but the pace of warming is increasing as it follows rising emissions.

As greenhouse gas emissions continued to rise, more dire warnings about how long it would take to cross the 1.5°C threshold followed. The travel, agricultural and shipping industry are the largest polluters in this question.

Today, most ships burn bunker fuel. Typically, this is the dregs left over at the end of the refinery process. It is an environmental nightmare. It is heavy and toxic, doesn’t evaporate, and emits more sulfur than other fuels.

Like aviation, shipping isn’t covered by the Paris Agreement on climate change because of the international nature of the industry. These industries will simply say that they are doing a good job building more efficient vessels and retrofitting older ships.

Major cities like Miami will soon be further under water, even after implementing a $5 billion revamp, the US city still experienced major flooding the streets in down town Miami.

Unprecedented heat waves. Terrifying storms. Widespread water shortages. The extinction of a million species of plants and animals.

Rising temperatures would continue to impact weather patterns across the globe, including drier conditions over southwestern Europe and southwestern North America and wetter conditions in norther Europe, the Sahel and Australia

The Arctic, meanwhile, will continue to heat up at a rate three times as large as the global mean anomaly, speeding the melting of the polar ice caps and glaciers.

For as long as we continue to emit greenhouse gases, temperatures will continue to rise, Petteri Taalas, head of the World Meteorological Organization, said in a statement.

Alongside that, our oceans will continue to become warmer and more acidic, sea ice and glaciers will continue to melt, sea level will continue to rise and our weather will become more extreme.

ABC Flash Point News 2024.