{"id":24136,"date":"2019-09-10T12:38:15","date_gmt":"2019-09-10T10:38:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.greenpeace.org\/international\/?p=24136"},"modified":"2021-12-01T13:49:49","modified_gmt":"2021-12-01T12:49:49","slug":"these-12-car-companies-are-setting-the-world-on-fire","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.greenpeace.org\/international\/story\/24136\/these-12-car-companies-are-setting-the-world-on-fire\/","title":{"rendered":"These 12 car companies are setting the world on fire"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

The car industry is very good at pretending that they care about the environment and your health and safety. <\/span><\/p>\n\n

\"Aerials
Outside the IAA conference in Frankfurt, activists from Greenpeace Germany show just how much climate-damaging CO2 is emitted by some types of SUVs.
\u00a9 Greenpeace<\/div><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n

Over the last few decades, car manufacturers have gone to great lengths to demonstrate that they understand the threat their products pose to society by promoting \u201cgreener\u201d vehicles at motor shows or advertising that their huge concern for our wellbeing, especially that of our children. <\/span><\/p>\n\n

But it\u2019s mainly just talk and greenwashing.<\/span><\/p>\n\n

According to a new report<\/span><\/a> by Greenpeace East Asia and Greenpeace Germany, their corporate decision making tells a very different story \u2014 one in which the carbon footprint of global car industry equals 9% of global greenhouse gas emissions in 2018. <\/span><\/p>\n\n

That means the car industry spews out more than all the emissions from the thousands of factories, power plants, agriculture, aeroplanes in the entire European Union. If pumping out that much toxic, climate-warming pollution is their way of keeping us safe, then I think it\u2019s fair to say, the car industry is officially gaslighting us.<\/span><\/p>\n\n

\"List<\/figure><\/div>\n\n

In 2018 alone, <\/span>Volkswagen\u2019s carbon footprint exceeded the annual greenhouse gas emissions of Australia. Ford, General Motors and Fiat-Chrysler have the largest carbon footprint per vehicle due to car sales in the U.S. being dominated by large SUVs and pickup trucks (if you need any convincing that SUVs are one of the climate\u2019s worst nightmares, <\/span>read more here)<\/span><\/a>. Hyundai-Kia’s plan<\/a> to aggressively increase the proportion of SUVs in its product portfolio will inevitably lead to higher CO2 emissions.<\/p>\n\n

Let\u2019s be real: automakers<\/span> like VW, Renault-Nissan and others on the list are driving climate change<\/a><\/span>. They\u2019re not doing remotely enough to join us in moving towards a liveable \u2014 and breathable \u2014 future. <\/span>These companies have <\/span>exploited loopholes,<\/span><\/a> manipulated <\/span>data<\/span><\/a>, and installed <\/span>devices<\/span><\/a> on their products to <\/span>cheat regulation <\/span><\/a>tests while <\/span>lobbying against<\/span><\/a> strong climate regulation<\/span> and failing to market shared or electric vehicles in any meaningful way. <\/span><\/p>\n\n

What\u2019s most infuriating about the car industry is its complete unwillingness to address the climate emergency they helped create and accelerate. They are totally failing in the transition away from diesel and petrol cars. Promoting hybrid cars and improving efficiency are nothing but band-aid solutions to a serious crisis. <\/span><\/p>\n\n

And it\u2019s not like the world is begging to drive fossil-fueled cars exclusively \u2014 it\u2019s that the industry refuses to innovate in a way that greatly limits people\u2019s freedom to choose transportation that\u2019s greener, cleaner and safer for the climate and our health.<\/span><\/p>\n\n

\"Protest
Greenpeace activists are protesting climate-unfriendly SUVs in Bremerhaven.
\u00a9 Daniel M\u00fcller \/ Greenpeace<\/div><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n

In signing the Paris agreement, world leaders agreed on the need for a rapid transition to a climate-friendly transport system to prevent the planet from warming above 1.5 degrees. That means improving and extending public transport and creating networks run on renewable energy, investing in cycling and walking infrastructure, and increasing the safe uptake of micro-mobility solutions. <\/span><\/p>\n\n

But it\u2019s not just up to policymakers. The car industry needs to up its game, and phase out all diesel and petrol cars (yes, even hybrids). We want to see an end to new car sales by 2028, and instead have car manufacturers producing vehicles<\/span> that are smaller, lighter, more energy-efficient and electric.<\/span><\/p>\n\n

That\u2019s why we\u2019re <\/span>at the <\/span>International Motor Show in Frankfurt<\/span><\/a> this week \u2014 the largest car show in the world \u2014 to send a message to the industry directly. On September 14th, they\u2019ll be met by thousands of protesters from all over, cycling, walking, and demonstrating for a climate-friendly future.<\/span><\/p>\n\n

Wanna join in? Great, we need your help! Sign this open letter<\/a> to tell corporations like Volkswagen, Hyundai-Kia and others that it\u2019s time to clean up their act and join the wave of the future \u2014 not hand-cuff us to the past.<\/p>\n\n

Lauren Reid is the communications lead for the Clean Air Now campaign <\/em><\/p>\n

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In 2018 alone, Volkswagen\u2019s carbon footprint exceeded the annual greenhouse gas emissions of Australia.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":32,"featured_media":24169,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_planet4_optimize_post_is_variant":false,"_planet4_optimize_experiment_name":"","_planet4_optimize_variant_name":"","ep_exclude_from_search":false,"p4_og_title":"","p4_og_description":"","p4_og_image":"","p4_og_image_id":"","p4_seo_canonical_url":"","p4_campaign_name":"not set","p4_local_project":"","p4_basket_name":"not set","p4_department":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[69,73],"tags":[87,89,91],"p4-page-type":[59],"class_list":["post-24136","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-energy","category-social-and-economic-systems","tag-oil","tag-climate","tag-health","p4-page-type-story"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.greenpeace.org\/international\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24136","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.greenpeace.org\/international\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.greenpeace.org\/international\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.greenpeace.org\/international\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/32"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.greenpeace.org\/international\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=24136"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.greenpeace.org\/international\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24136\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":51206,"href":"https:\/\/www.greenpeace.org\/international\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24136\/revisions\/51206"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.greenpeace.org\/international\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/24169"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.greenpeace.org\/international\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=24136"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.greenpeace.org\/international\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=24136"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.greenpeace.org\/international\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=24136"},{"taxonomy":"p4-page-type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.greenpeace.org\/international\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/p4-page-type?post=24136"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}