CARB & Canada to Partner on Fuel Standards
The California Air Resources Board (CARB) has entered a partnership with the U.S.’s neighbor to the north. Catherine McKenna, Canada’s minister of environment and climate change and Mary Nichols, chair of CARB, recently signed a cooperation agreement to advance cleaner vehicles and fuels.
The Memorandum of Understanding commits both governments to work together on developing their respective regulations to cut greenhouse gas emissions from light-duty vehicles, such as those currently in effect in Canada, California and the 13 U.S. states that have adopted CARB standards. Canada is currently reviewing its light-duty vehicle standards.
“The partnership will see Canada and California work together to accelerate the adoption of zero-emission vehicles like electric cars,” CARB stated in a news release. “This could include sharing lessons learned by both jurisdictions about requirements, incentives, and dealer inducements to boost sales, along with sharing approaches to developing charging infrastructure.”
The two jurisdictions will also share technical information and best practices in regulating cleaner fuels, as California does today though its low-carbon fuel standard. Canada is developing a Clean Fuel Standard that will cut emissions by 30 million tons in 2030, according to McKenna.
The agreement will take a variety of forms, including establishing a working group that meets annually, sharing policy information and program design, providing capacity building and technical support, exchanges of personnel, cooperative research and development, and joint organization of symposia and trainings. The two regulatory agencies will also work together on emissions testing and enforcement of vehicle regulations.
Canada aims to have 100 percent of vehicles sold in there be zero-emission by 2040. California requires automakers to ensure that a growing fraction of their sales are zero-emission vehicles and aims to have 5 million zero-emission vehicles on the road by 2030.
The 13 states working with California on regulations to cut greenhouse gas emissions from vehicles are Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Jersey, New York, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Vermont and Washington. Combined, these states and California constitute more than 40 percent of the U.S. passenger vehicle market.
