Australia to set fuel efficiency standards 

SYDNEY

Australia unveiled plans yesterday to set mandatory fuel efficiency standards, matching long-existing rules in other advanced economies in a bid to get high-polluting gas guzzlers off the road.

Climate Change Minister Chris Bowen said a "New Vehicle Efficiency Standard" would be introduced by 2025, ending decades of footdragging and debate about the policy.

"The United States has had a similar policy in place for fifty years," Bowen said. "Australia still stands alongside Russia as one of the only advanced economies without the Standard."

"This is costing families and businesses thousands of dollars at the petrol pump," he said.

Australia currently has no mandatory fuel efficiency standards for new vehicles.

In a 2022 study, the Australia Institute think tank suggested that the lack of an efficiency standard was costing the country billions of dollars on fuel, and meant vehicles were 30 percent more polluting than vehicles in the United States.

Advocates have blamed climate-sceptic governments, as well as lobbying from oil refiners and car dealerships for repeatedly scuppering reforms.

They hope the new fuel standard will make petrol vehicles more efficient but also catalyse slow sales of electric vehicles.

According to International Energy Agency data, 33,000 electric vehicles were sold in Australia in 2022. That compares to 73,000 in the Netherlands, which has about eight million fewer people.

Australia also has a few thousand electric car charging points, a small fraction of the number in the United States or Europe.

The incumbent centre-left government has vowed to cut carbon emissions by 43 percent before 2030, when compared to 2005 levels.