The automobile companies that made the commitment had accounted for approximately a quarter of global sales in 2019, The New York Times said in a report.
Six large automobile makers and 31 countries on Wednesday pledged to work towards ending the sale of new petrol and diesel vehicles by 2040, and five years sooner in the world’s “leading markets” for their vehicles.
The automakers who took the pledge include the American companies Ford and General Motors, Mercedes-Benz of Germany, and Volvo of Sweden, but not the global giants Toyota of Japan, Volkswagen of Germany, and the French-Japanese alliance Nissan-Renault.
The automobile companies that made the commitment had accounted for approximately a quarter of global sales in 2019, The New York Times said in a report.
Governments of three of the world’s biggest automobile markets, the United States, China, and Japan, abstained from taking the pledge. But India — the fourth-largest auto market in the world — joined the coalition, which includes the United Kingdom, Canada, the Netherlands, Norway, Poland, and Sweden.
The pledge is not legally binding. But the announcement by the companies and countries were seen in Glasgow as another indication that the internal combustion engine was on its way out, and battery-powered electric vehicles would rapidly gain roadspace around the world.
As of 2018, the latest year for which a reliable assessment is widely available, road travel — including both passenger and freight vehicles — accounted for almost three-quarters of the world’s transport emissions. Passenger vehicles — cars and buses — accounted for the larger part of road travel emissions, and 45.1% of total CO2 emissions from transport.
Since the entire transport sector accounted for a little more than a fifth of total CO2 emissions, and road transport accounted for three-quarters of transport emissions, road transport accounted for 15% of total global CO2 emissions.
As the pie chart shows, aviation and shipping were relatively small contributors to global transport emissions — 11.6% and 10.6% respectively. The contribution of rail travel was negligible.