Polestar says car industry moving ‘too slowly’ following COP26 climate pledge
Swedish car maker Polestar says the car industry is doing ‘too little, too slowly’ when it comes to climate targets.
A number of companies have signed the Glasgow Declaration on Zero Emission Cars at the COP26 climate conference, which is a commitment to phasing out fossil fuel vehicles between 2035 and 2040.
However, Polestar CEO Thomas Ingenlath said: “Car companies are still talking about selling petrol and diesel cars until 2040. Considering the lifetime of a car, they will still be driving and polluting the second half of this century. They are delaying one of the most powerful climate protection solutions available to us.”
The firm said that the climate commitment has come ‘as large parts of the automotive industry seem to be switching to electric vehicles as slowly as they can’.
Ingenlath added: “Building and selling electric cars isn’t the end point, it is the beginning. We will need at least as much attention on creating a clean supply chain and ultimately recycling. An electric car is a good start, and a pathway to true climate neutral mobility, but, clean means clean from start to finish. Polestar is not perfect, but we are working at being better.”
Ford, Jaguar Land Rover, Mercedes-Benz, GM and Polestar owners Volvo are among the car makers that have backed the non-binding pledge. A number of governments have also signed the commitment, though China, France, Germany and the US have not.
Polestar and Volvo share details of the carbon footprint of their electric vehicles. The most recent study looked at the Volvo C40 Recharge EV, which found that the production process of an EV has higher emissions, but its overall footprint is lower across the life of the vehicle.
