Green Focus: Pew Environment Group

Pew Charitable Trusts is the conservation arm of The Pew Environment Group which is based in the USA. Their aim is to help meet challenges of our time to save the natural environment and protect the rich array of the life that it supports. They aim to strengthen national policies and the practices to produce significant protection for all, be it people and animals worldwide and they also urge development of alternative clean energy instead of using fossil fuel, and to also improve energy efficiency. In the United States, cars and trucks and the mass transit system consume around 14 million barrels of oil a day, this is two thirds of the nation’s daily total. As there are more and more vehicles and more kilometres driven so will the costs to the economy. Cars and light trucks account for 61% of the energy used in the United States for transportation. One campaign the Pew Group was working on was for better Fuel Efficiency. The campaign worked to support stronger standards using military experts, the auto industry, consumer advocates and diverse constituencies. The aim was to educate the American Public, media and opinion makers as well as Congress. They did achieve an increase in fuel efficiency standards; in 2007 President Bush passed a law that saw the first increase in fuel efficiency standards in over 30 years. This increase was for cars and light trucks. This saved 1.1 million barrels of oil a day which in turn saved consumers $25 billion at fuel pumps. This also made the auto industry the first to reduce its global warming pollution, this in equivalent was taking 28 million cars off of the road. The Pew Clean Energy Program still continues to support measures which will make the U.S. auto fleet more fuel efficient and cleaner. They also encourage the use of electric vehicles and hybrids. It was recently announced that by the year 2025 fuel efficiency and emissions performance be the equivalent of 54.5 miles to the gallon. This would save consumers up to $6,600 in fuel costs for the life of the model in 2025 compared with a vehicle built in 2010. This will double the fuel efficiency in less than 15 years. These new standards have the support of vehicle manufacturers like general motors, organized labor like the united auto workers union, industry, even the state of California and national security and environmental groups. All of the programs that the Pew Group run will help reduce the carbon footprint left by us all. And the improvements made to new vehicles will in turn help car rental companies in Sydney and other major cities. These companies will be reducing the amount of emissions they emit from the vehicles in their fleets. So when you do use car rental in sydney you will know that you will be using a vehicle that is better and more fuel efficient, this in turn is better for the environment.