International NGO, The Climate Group convened an electric vehicle leadership summit yesterday (May 3, 2010) at Monaco’s Pavilion at the Shanghai World Expo 2010 to explore how the world’s biggest and smallest countries are hoping to turn the world’s 1 billion vehicle fleet electric.
The group- a coalition of governments and the world’s most influential businesses- attended the event as it published its report detailing how China has put EV low carbon technology at the heart of their economic growth plans.
The report entitled ‘Towards Market Transformation: Electric Vehicles’, co-ordinated by Bain & Company says that China’s low carbon plans for the next 10 years have underpinned not only the nation’s economic developmental goals but social, environmental and energy security objectives too.
Meanwhile, emphasising the robustness, reliability and universal applications of electric vehicle technologies, Monaco car manufacturer Venturi Automobiles and partner PSA Peugeot Citroen launched a new world record attempt from the Shanghai show to travel 13400km from the city to Paris in a 100 per cent electric truck, identical to those supplied to the French postal service ‘La Poste’.
The adventure’s environmental aims are supported by the Prince Albert II of Monaco Foundation. The Principality has had a strong policy of incentives for EVs for the last 15 years.
The Climate Group’s EV20 working group meeting in Shanghai is the latest in a series of meetings to build an international ‘coalition of the willing’ to rapidly advance the commercial deployment of EVs around the world. There will be further meetings in New York (US) and Cancun (Mexico) later this year.
Speaking at the Climate Group EV20 working group event HSH Prince Albert II of Monaco said: “EVs can drastically improve urban air quality and reduce the impact of transportation in the field of greenhouse gas emissions and consequently on our climate and our energy resource. In the future I am sure that the energy storage potential that fleets of EVs offer will help better integration of renewable power into our grid systems – the car of the future will be powered, I hope, by electricity coming from wind, sun or water.”
Changhua Wu, Greater China Director of The Climate Group said: "Climate change presents challenges and opportunities for every nation. It is only by all countries working together – big and small – that we will see the global market transformation we need in key low carbon technologies such as EVs. As the world’s largest auto market, China is in pole position to help lead this global clean industrial revolution and growth of this strategic domestic EV market could be exponential."
The Climate Group members include Tesco, Virgin, Better Place, IBM and Barclays to name a few. Over the next five years, the group aims to help governments and businesses set the world economy on the path to a low-carbon, prosperous future.
