"Say goodbye to gas guzzlers"

...In Nova Scotia / from the Halifax News (hfxnews.ca)

If you want a gas guzzler, better buy it fast. The province is adopting emissions standards that will require new vehicles to be increasingly fuel efficient, starting in 2009. Environment Minister Mark Parent predicted consumers will notice the change quickly.

"In two years, I think they're going to be buying cars that are substantially different from what they have now," he said yesterday.

Nova Scotia promised Tuesday to join with other eastern provinces and New England states in adopting California's vehicle-emission rules. By 2016, car manufacturers will have to cut greenhouse-gas pollution by 30 per cent.

The province is joining a low-emissions market of about 65 million, including British Columbia, which signed on last month. Parent said car makers will have no choice but to build to the new standard.

Halifax car salesman David Burke agrees cars will be different, thanks to the new rules. They will be more efficient and less polluting. They will also be a lot more expensive.

"The technology is there now," Burke said. "This is just going to cost the consumer, because he's going to have to buy a car that meets the standard."

Burke works for Carroll Pontiac Buick GMC Hummer. As the name indicates, the dealership sells Hummer SUVs, including the huge H2. General Motors does not publish the vehicle's fuel efficiency rating, but reviews peg it at about 10 miles per gallon (about 23.5 litres per 100 kilometres).

Even that vehicle can be made more efficient, for a price. Burke pointed out that California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger was recently photographed driving an experimental model outfitted with a hydrogen-powered engine.

The auto industry has argued the new emissions rules target the wrong vehicles. Older cars create far more pollution than the vehicles that are currently coming off assembly lines.

The Canadian Vehicle Manufacturers Association says the average car built before 1987 creates the same "regulated emissions" as 37 cars built today.

That statistic reflects smog-fighting technology. Manufacturers have made many improvements in reducing pollutants like nitrous oxide over the last 20 years. But gasoline and diesel engines produce as much climate-changing carbon dioxide as they ever did.