Norway Reportedy Contemplating Ban on Thirstiest Autos
We're not sure what constitutes a gas-guzzler in Norway, a hot spot of public transit and green car enthusiasm, but the government there is contemplating a complete ban on them, the country's environment minister says.
----------
Pedestrians and electric buses often outnumber cars in central Oslo.
----------
It's not a plan that would do well in most places - certainly not in countries that have a domestic auto industry that employs lots of people and contributes lots of dough to politicians - but except for electric-car makers Think Global and ElbilNorge , Norway doesn't have much of a car-making business to worry about.
The Scandinavian country does, however, worry about energy independence, the environment and the auto's impacts thereon.
It has a long history of providing tax incentives for vehicles using alternatives to petroleum-based fuels (one reason Think is a Norwegian company) and is promoting a program called HyNor -- Hydrogen Road of Norway) aimed at encouraging use of hydrogen as a transportation fuel.
But Thinks and gas-sipping European economy cars aren't the only autos prowling Norwegian highways -- one can spot the occasional Volvo, Land Rover, Mercedes-Benz or Jaguar, and they are, by local standards, thirsty beasts.
In a recent interview with the newspaper Aftenposten, Environment Minister Erik Solheim said Norway now intends to do "whatever it takes" to stick to its goal of achieving over the next dozen years a 30 percent reduction from its 1990 carbon emissions levels and that a ban on "tens of thousands" of high emissions cars is one of the measures being discussed.
Analysts at Global Insight suggest that any action aimed at gas-guzzling cars is more likely to come in the form of taxes that escalate with a vehicle's CO2 emissions - which are directly related to fuel consumption - than as a formal ban on sales.
However it shakes out, it will be interesting to see (if it works at all) how much the removal of the biggest gas guzzlers can impact an entire nation's carbon footprint
We're not sure what constitutes a gas-guzzler in Norway, a hot spot of public transit and green car enthusiasm, but the government there is contemplating a complete ban on them, the country's environment minister says.
----------
Pedestrians and electric buses often outnumber cars in central Oslo.
----------
It's not a plan that would do well in most places - certainly not in countries that have a domestic auto industry that employs lots of people and contributes lots of dough to politicians - but except for electric-car makers Think Global and ElbilNorge , Norway doesn't have much of a car-making business to worry about.
The Scandinavian country does, however, worry about energy independence, the environment and the auto's impacts thereon.
It has a long history of providing tax incentives for vehicles using alternatives to petroleum-based fuels (one reason Think is a Norwegian company) and is promoting a program called HyNor -- Hydrogen Road of Norway) aimed at encouraging use of hydrogen as a transportation fuel.
But Thinks and gas-sipping European economy cars aren't the only autos prowling Norwegian highways -- one can spot the occasional Volvo, Land Rover, Mercedes-Benz or Jaguar, and they are, by local standards, thirsty beasts.
In a recent interview with the newspaper Aftenposten, Environment Minister Erik Solheim said Norway now intends to do "whatever it takes" to stick to its goal of achieving over the next dozen years a 30 percent reduction from its 1990 carbon emissions levels and that a ban on "tens of thousands" of high emissions cars is one of the measures being discussed.
Analysts at Global Insight suggest that any action aimed at gas-guzzling cars is more likely to come in the form of taxes that escalate with a vehicle's CO2 emissions - which are directly related to fuel consumption - than as a formal ban on sales.
However it shakes out, it will be interesting to see (if it works at all) how much the removal of the biggest gas guzzlers can impact an entire nation's carbon footprint
