Globally, from China and Germany to the United States, electric vehicle (EV) subsidies have been championed as an effective strategy to boost production of renewable technology and reduce greenhouse gas emissions (GHG).
But a new study by Concordia economics professor Ian Irvine shows that subsidizing EVs in the North American context will not reduce GHG emissions in the short-term, and may even increase them — at a cost to taxpayers.
Globally, from China and Germany to the United States, electric vehicle (EV) subsidies have been championed as an effective strategy to boost production of renewable technology and reduce greenhouse gas emissions (GHG).
But a new study by Concordia economics professor Ian Irvine shows that subsidizing EVs in the North American context will not reduce GHG emissions in the short-term, and may even increase them — at a cost to taxpayers.
Recently published in Canadian Public Policy, Irvine’s study compared the incentives for producing EVs that are found in the Corporate Average Fuel Economy (CAFE) standards, North America’s fuel-efficiency regulations, with new EV subsidy policies in Ontario, Quebec and British Columbia.
He found that, while the subsidies encourage the production of more EVs, they undermine the efficiency requirements of existing incentives for conventional vehicles. This results in a zero or negative near-term GHG benefit.
“Sometimes you have more than one policy aimed at a particular goal, and usually those policies are complementary,” Irvine notes. “But in this case, they work at cross purposes.”
Read more at Concordia University
Image Credits: Raphael Desrosiers via Wikimedia Commons
