California pioneered the extraordinarily expensive and resource intensive car-dependent transportation system that has been imitated around the world. But it is not a sustainable model for California or anywhere else. The challenge is to redirect and transform transportation. California has crafted a mix of regulations, incentives and market instruments that together comprise a sophisticated, comprehensive, and largely coherent policy model to guide the transformation. We are clearly not alone. Many countries are enacting policies and programs to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from transportation and other sources. But California is unique in the comprehensiveness of its climate policies addressing transportation. The European Union was a leader in adopting (voluntary) carbon dioxide standards for vehicles in 1998 and launched a cap-and-trade program for major stationary sources in 2005. Both preceded California. But California's 2006 global warming law (AB32), which is the empowering law for many of the policies described in this paper, is broader, requiring reductions across the entire economy. California also adopted mandatory vehicle greenhouse gas standards before Europe, and adopted a low carbon fuel standard which is being imitated in Europe, but more slowly and in a more limited way. California has also created a policy program that addresses vehicle usage, via SB375, while Europe still has not devised a coherent policy or strategy for addressing the road transport sector though, for historical reasons, most European cities are far more innovative and effective at reducing sprawl and vehicle use. To Europe's credit, it is also pursuing broad policies to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from ocean shipping and aviation, which California is not largely because as a state within a nation, California has limited jurisdiction over inter-state and international trade. Economists would argue that California's approach is second best, since it does not rely principally on market instruments. While it is true that California is not relying principally on a simple carbon tax (or even cap-and-trade program), we argue that such a tax-based approach is not politically possible in the current climate, nor is it capable of gaining more than a small fraction of the reductions that are being called for. Even Europe, with its large fuel taxes, feels the need to also enact very aggressive regulatory requirements. Moreover, many market failures and market conditions undermine the effect of carbon and fuel taxes. Targeted incentives and rules are needed to address the myriad market failures and market barriers hindering the transformation of the transportation system.


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    Title :

    California's climate policy for transportation and electric-drive vehicles


    Contributors:

    Published in:

    Publication date :

    2012


    Size :

    10 Seiten, 1 Bild, 14 Quellen



    Type of media :

    Conference paper


    Type of material :

    Print


    Language :

    English






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