Unwilling to wait any longer for action from Washington, California yesterday became the first state in the US to go it alone on reducing greenhouse gas emissions.
Despite protests from the car industry, Governor Gray Davis signed into law legislation requiring all new cars to meet reduced CO2 emission standards from 2008, and directing the California Air Resources Board to set "economically feasible" targets and to decide how to do it.
The board will encourage energy-saving methods such as "lower-friction" tyres, the refinement of gear boxes, catalytic converters, changes in the coolants used in air-conditioning systems, and the use of new light-weight composite materials.
The state, which represents 10 per cent of the US car market and a population of 35 million, is the fifth largest economy in the world and contributes about 0.5 per cent of the world's increase in CO2. It has pioneered other environmental legislation and is already being sued by manufacturers over legislation passed in 1990 which requires them to derive 10 per cent of their sales from cars with near-zero emissions (of which a fifth must be zero-emission).
The latter legislation was due to come into force in 2003 but has been held up in the courts. Manufacturers have been forced, however, to accelerate research programmes, investing billions in everything from souped-up electric golf carts to electric-powered SUVs and new breeds of ultra-efficient gas-powered cars.
Both bills are thus likely to have significant knock-on effects on consumers in the US. "You can't make one car for California and another car for Washington, DC," Mr Eron Shosteck, a spokesman for the Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers told the Washington Post.
The industry complains the bills limit consumer choice, will raise prices and force drivers into small cars. Mr Davis said, however, he had hoped that Washington would take the lead in tackling global warming, "but the worst thing we could do in California is to do nothing".
He challenged the Bush administration to begin working to reduce emissions with federal regulations.
The administration last year repudiated the international agreement on the Kyoto protocol, which would have set targets for reductions in national greenhouse gas emissions, in favour of a policy which would seek voluntary curbs which took account of economic growth.
