Canada recently signed Drive to Zero Pledge, an international initiative that seeks to have most new commercial vehicles be zero-emissions by 2040.
The pledge is non-binding, but is consistent with many of the government’s policies, including carbon reduction and incentives for green investments.
The federal government announced that revenue from the national carbon pricing system can be used to support fleets that investin environmentally clean trucking technologies and devices – a plan long called for by the Canadian Trucking Alliance.
“In Canada, transportation is the second largest source of emissions. As we move to a cleaner economy, we know we need to do something about that,” the Minister of the Environment Catherine McKenna tweeted on June 1. British Columbia also signed the initiative.
The Drive to Zero initiative, created by the California non-profit CALSTART, covers medium and heavy-duty trucks, cargo vans and buses. It aims to bring stakeholders including governments and manufacturers together in order to facilitate the large-scale deployment of zero-emissions commercial vehicles.
“Canada is well-positioned to be among the leaders transitioning to zero-emission commercial fleets, delivering both environmental and economic benefits. We’re a big country and we move a lot of freight by truck,” said Merran Smith, executive director of Clean Energy Canada, a think-tank that is part of the initiative.
The Canadian Trucking Alliance supports the adoption of zero-emissions technology, president Stephen Laskowski, told Freightwaves.
“The CTA welcomes the opportunity to work with the federal government, NGOs and suppliers of heavy trucks to build a road map towards the direction and achievable timeline of zero-emission engines,” Laskowski said. “The key to the success of this roadmap will not only be identifying viable technology but developing a technology implementation schedule that ensures the reliability of this equipment for future heavy-truck purchasers from coast-to-coast in all operating conditions and at all weight classifications.”
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