- Ford, Mercedes-Benz, General Motors, and Volvo signed an emissions pledge during the COP26 climate negotiations, promising to “work hard to achieve 100% zero-emissions new car and truck sales in key markets by 2035 or earlier”.
- But Toyota, Volkswagen, Hyundai-Kia and Renault-Nissan alliance are not on the list.
- Toyota-the world’s best-selling automaker-defended its decision not to sign the pledge, saying its global operations would make the pledge “difficult.”
Toyota defended its decision not to sign the emissions pledges made during the COP26 climate negotiations on Wednesday, saying its global operations would make the pledges “difficult”.
Auto giants such as Ford, Mercedes-Benz, General Motors, and Volvo Cars stated that they will “work hard to achieve 100% zero-emissions sales of new cars and vans in key markets by 2035 or earlier.”
Prior to the announcement at the Glasgow Summit, various national and local governments, companies and investors in the transport sector also signed policy documents issued by the United Kingdom.
But Toyota, the world’s best-selling automaker, has not yet signed a commitment, and Volkswagen, Hyundai-Kia, Stellattis and Renault-Nissan Alliance are not on the list.
In an interview with Agence France-Presse on Wednesday, Kohei Yoshida, general manager of the Toyota ZEV plant, the group’s dedicated zero-emission vehicle division, said that in addition to trading, there are “many ways to achieve carbon neutrality.”
“It is very important to ensure that we consider all countries and regions, different environments and different places,” he said.
Yoshida explained that it takes time to build infrastructure for electric, battery and fuel cell vehicles in developing economies such as Africa and Latin America.
Toyota said in a statement, “It is difficult for us to make a commitment to the joint statement at this stage.”
But Yoshida emphasized that the company respects COP26 discussions.
“More important than issuing a joint statement is that each participant is accepting the challenge and working hard to achieve carbon neutrality,” he said.
The Japanese company raised its annual profit forecast last week and said in September that it would invest 1.5 trillion yen ($13.2 billion) in batteries for electric and hybrid vehicles by 2030.
It also pioneered hydrogen-burning vehicles-hyped as a green fuel because it emits only water vapor, although most of the current manufacturing methods produce harmful emissions.
However, the market for such cars is still small: since Toyota introduced the hydrogen fuel cell Mirai in 2014, it has sold only 17,000 vehicles.
This pales in comparison to the 9-10 million vehicles it sells each year, including nearly 2 million hybrid vehicles in 2020.
Although hybrid vehicles are becoming more and more popular around the world, they have also been criticized by environmentalists. Greenpeace stated that compared with gasoline or diesel vehicles, plug-in hybrid vehicles can only reduce by about a third. One’s emissions.
However, Toyota believes that hybrid vehicles “will become a very important way for developing economies to achieve carbon neutrality” by improving energy efficiency, Yoshida said.
COP26 Automobile Emissions Commitment promises that governments of all countries are committed to achieving zero emissions from all new cars and trucks worldwide by 2040, and to achieve zero emissions in major markets no later than 2035.
