Canada Will Ban Internal Combustion Vehicles by 2035
Many progressive nations have announced plans to phase out the sale of light duty vehicles powered by internal combustion engines, with many settling on 2030, 2035, or 2040 as feasible target dates for completing the transition. On June 29th, Canada announced plans to move its 2040 deadline forward five years, synchronizing it with that of Quebec, Canada’s second largest province.
The announcement is also consistent with California’s zero emission vehicle mandates, which are currently being modified to achieve the same 2035 goal. In September of 2020, Governor Gavin Newsom issued an executive order directing the California Air Resources Board to develop regulations that will insure an orderly transition away from gasoline over the course of fifteen years. There are currently nine other states that have adopted California’s aggressive ZEV mandates. Quebec announced its own 2035 target date last November, shortly after Newsom’s bold executive order.
The International Energy Agency’s “2021 Global EV Outlook” highlights eleven nations with even faster timetables than those envisioned here in North America. Norway leads the world in EV adoption and plans to say goodbye to gas burners by 2025. A 2030 target date has been adopted by Denmark, Iceland, Ireland, Israel, the Netherlands, Scotland, Singapore, Slovenia, Sweden, and the United Kingdom. 2040 will be the deadline in France, Portugal, and Spain.
Canada’s government is now well ahead of the United States when it comes to regulating tailpipe carbon dioxide. The Environmental Protection Agency increased the stringency of corporate average fuel economy standards under the Obama Administration, but consumer trends favoring larger, more powerful vehicles offset the modest environmental benefit, and our national gasoline consumption has been increasing steadily. The Trump Administration rolled back Obama’s inadequate standards even further, and those finalized rules remain in effect.
While the rest of the developed world is recognizing that ZEV mandates are a preferable strategy to fuel economy regulations, which only produce small, incremental emission reductions, there now appears to be little hope that the Biden Administration will advocate for anything similar to what was just announced in Canada. At a recent House hearing, Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg was asked about the future of internal combustion vehicle sales here in the United States. He indicated that he was unaware of any plans by the federal government to implement ZEV mandates resembling California’s.
EPA Administrator Michael Regan has said that he will make an announcement about fuel economy regulations this month, but few expect the EPA to abandon its notoriously lenient regulatory framework. In 2007, the U.S. Supreme Court determined that carbon dioxide from motor vehicles is a pollutant under the Clean Air Act and must be regulated by the EPA, but so far the agency has failed to demand meaningful CO2 reductions from automakers.
Canada’s principled decision reaffirms the growing consensus that 2035 is a perfectly reasonable date for ending the sale of internal combustion vehicles. The United States likes to consider itself a leader in the global effort against climate change, but our reluctance to transition decisively away from gasoline is evidence to the contrary. California and its coalition of progressive states will now benefit from bold, national leadership - in Ottawa, the true capital of EV adoption here in North America.