Australia’s car industry ignored the elephant in the room: carbon emission

Anna Mortimore -
ignoring the
elephant in the room.

Ford’s closure of its Geelong manufacturing plant on Friday is part of a broader story about Australia’s manufacturing sector. But one side of this story has so far been overlooked: the role of Australia’s lax attitude to vehicle emissions.

Globally, car manufacturers are taking climate action seriously by significantly improving fuel economy, in turn reducing a car’s CO₂ emissions.

Repeated policy failure and a marked reluctance by the Australian car industry to shift from manufacturing mostly high CO₂-emitting vehicles contributed to Ford ending operations. The Australian car industry ignored the elephant in the room.

This effectively contradicts former-Treasurer Joe Hockey’s assertion that climate change has no impediment on economic growth, as Australia gets left behind in a world embracing action on climate change.

Read the thoughts of a lecturer from the Griffith Business School at Griffith University, Anna Mortimore, on The Conversation - “Australia’s car industry ignored the elephant in the room: carbon emission.”