Greenpeace wants new petrol and diesel vehicles banned by 2030

“Underwhelming” is Greenpeace’s view of the National Party’s EV Plan pledging 80,000 EVs in the national fleet by 2023, and to make the government’s fleet one-third electric by the same date.

National would allow businesses who pay for employer-provided electric cars to be exempt from paying fringe-benefit tax, and would exclude EVs from road user charges. Electric cars would also be able to drive in bus lanes.

Notably, the policy doesn’t include commitments to introduce anything like the EV “feebate” scheme, recommended by the Productivity Commission, Greenpeace says.

The “feebate” would provide grants for people to buy low-emissions vehicles alongside an additional charge on gas guzzlers.

“National’s electric vehicles policy is a very cautious step in the right direction, but really underwhelming in the context of the climate crisis,” says Greenpeace climate and energy campaigner Amanda Larsson.

“Just as we saw with Labour’s energy policy announcement, National is slowly tip-toeing forward when it should be taking the big, bold strides that we need to address the climate crisis.

“Right now, the world is quite literally on fire with unprecedented wildfires raging in the Amazon rainforest, California and Siberia. The apocalyptic scenes from San Francisco are coming through less than a year after the devastating Australian bushfires covered New Zealand in a red haze.”

Larsson says every nation and every government must act with urgency.

“After these two announcements, New Zealanders will be left wondering whether either of the two big parties is actually committed to taking climate change seriously.”

A commitment to ban imports of new petrol and diesel vehicles by 2030 is needed, Larsson says. “This is consistent with moves by more than 14 countries and over 20 cities around the world.”

She says more needs to be done to also incentivise people to make their next car electric.

“In 2018, New Zealanders bought more than 60 times as many gas guzzlers as electric cars. Transport is our fastest growing source of carbon emissions and it’s easy to see why,” Larsson adds.

“Any political party that’s serious about tackling climate change needs to discourage the import of gas guzzlers and instead encourage low emissions options. With billions of dollars of COVID Recovery Funds being made available to stimulate the economy, providing grants for people to purchase electric cars is just common sense.”

According to Ipsos polling, 79% of New Zealanders are concerned about climate change and 63% feel that if the government does not act now to combat climate change it will be failing Kiwis.