Friday 9 February 2024: The Federal Chamber of Automotive Industries (FCAI) has today released its own modelling that suggests the cost of limits on car pollution could be as high as $38 billion over the first five years. Here's why that's bullshit.
Comments attributable to Greenpeace Australia Pacific campaigner Joe Rafalowicz:
"The new Vehicle Emissions Standards are like setting a speed limit, with a fine if you go over. The idea is that you don't speed. The FCAI has said 'imagine if we all just kept driving at the same speed, imagine how many fines we would get!'.
"But the point of changing the speed limit is that you avoid getting a fine by following "the rules. That means bringing more efficient cars to Australia, and selling more of them – not selling exactly the same thing as they have in stock today, and then copping a fine (which you pass on to the customer).
"Avoiding the fines in the first place is exactly what happened when the EU brought in emissions rules (which have even stronger targets than are proposed in Australia).
"In 2022, 100% of car companies in the EU met their target (emitted less than they were required to.
"In 2021, 100% of the top-selling car companies in the EU met their targets, and 4 out of 88 companies had to pay any kind of penalty (and those companies sold less than 2000 cars in the luxury segment, and so paid a minimal penalty which was not passed on to customers).
"The idea that car companies in Australia will keep speeding down the highway, ignoring the new speed limit, and will then pass their fines onto the customer is disingenuous and flies in the face of evidence about how these schemes work.
"In short, it is bullshit. And not the good kind that you can turn into compost."
