California’s regulators have unanimously voted to move with a plan to ban the sales of new diesel trucks as of 2036 as part of the state’s push to clean up its transportation sector emissions.
Late last week, the California Air Resources Board (CARB) approved a first-of-its-kind rule that requires a phased-in transition toward zero-emission medium-and-heavy duty vehicles.
Under the new rule, named Advanced Clean Fleets, all truck sales need to shift to zero emissions by 2036, and is especially focused on large fleets of polluting vehicles.
California has already moved to ban the sales of new passenger vehicles with internal combustion engines from 2035.
“While trucks represent only 6% of the vehicles on California’s roads, they account for over 35% of the state’s transportation generated nitrogen oxide emissions and a quarter of the state’s on-road greenhouse gas emissions,” California Air Resources Board said in a statement on the moves to accelerate the deployment of heavy-duty zero-emission vehicles (ZEVs) to protect public health.
Between 2021 and 2025, California will have invested nearly $3 billion in zero-emission trucks and infrastructure, CARB said.
This investment is a part of a $9 billion multi-year, multi-agency zero-emissions vehicle package to decarbonize the transportation sector that was agreed upon by the Governor and the Legislature in 2021.
Paul Cort, director of Earthjustice’s Right to Zero campaign, commented, “Diesel trucks are the worst polluters on our roads, pumping an especially harmful form of air pollution into communities living in the shadow of ports and freeways. This new truck rule will have profound health and economic benefits not just here, but in every other state that adopts these clean air protections.”
However, the large truck manufacturers and the trucking industry have strongly opposed such legislation, saying that the deadlines are unrealistic and the cost of making a truck electric is currently too high.
By Tsvetana Paraskova for Oilprice.com
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