Ministers at the Clean Energy Ministerial in Washington, DC, are launching the Electric Vehicles Initiative as they bid to meet targets for the deployment of electric vehicles.
With estimates suggesting there will be at least 20million electric vehicles on the road worldwide by 2020, a forum for global co-operation has been launched in a bid to accelerate their uptake. This already includes the governments of China, France, Germany, Japan, South Africa, Spain, Sweden, the UK and the USA with other partners including the International Energy Agency.
This global initiative will collaborate with relevant industry, academic and end-user stakeholders to increase electric vehicle sales with participating countries agreeing to launch a pilot cities programme; to share information on funding levels and other features of research and development; and to share information on deployment targets, best practices and policies.
It is expected that the participating countries will establish pilot projects in several cities for the demonstration of electric vehicles – this can include hybrid electric vehicles; plug-in hybrid electric vehicles; all-electric vehicles; and fuel cell vehicles. China is organising an International Forum on Electric Vehicle Demonstration Cities while also building a “demonstration zone” to serve as a platform for the pilot.
Several other initiatives were also launched at the Clean Energy Ministerial including: super-efficient equipment and appliance deployment; global superior energy performance partnership; clean energy solution centres; international smart grid action network; multilateral solar and wind working group; carbon capture, use and storage action group; multilateral bio-energy working group; solar and LED energy access programme; sustainable development of hydropower initiative; and the clean energy education and empowerment women’s initiative.
