Official says too many poor choices made with vehicle imports over the years

With over 90 per cent of the vehicles on the road dependent on fossil fuels, a senior Government official has admitted that bad choices have been made with the types of automobiles brought into the country.

Chief Planning Officer in the Ministry of Transport and Works, Mark Durant said although the country was making moves to reduce its carbon footprint it would be difficult to do so with the number of gasoline and diesel vehicles being used.

He maintained that decarbonization was extremely important to Barbados and the rest of the Caribbean.

“We have about 120, 000 vehicles. As of last year we had 650 electric vehicles…but we haven’t been doing too good with vehicles and vehicle imports over time. We love the cars and we love status and so on. We’ve been importing fossil fuel cars and 70 per cent of these vehicles are 20 years and over so the fuel efficiency for burning carbon increases and we keep adding that burnt carbon to the atmosphere, increasing the problem with the greenhouse gases,” Durant said while speaking at the 10th International Road Federation (IRF) Caribbean Regional Congress at the Lloyd Erskine Sandiford Centre.

“Too many heavy goods vehicles, light goods vehicles 20 years and over, we continue to add to that problem. We are limestone countries in the Caribbean. We are very fragile and our ecosystems are very fragile, so this is the reason why decarbonization is important.”

Durant said a recent electric vehicle study had been conducted which looked at the Transport Board, Barbados Police Service and the rest of the Government fleet.

He said it showed that the Transport Board fleet travelled seven million miles annually, the police fleet drove 12.4 million kilometers per year while the rest of the Government fleet travelled 9.3 million kilometers annually.

“This is all fossil fuel being burnt…The total Government fleet is only .6 per cent of all vehicles so you can imagine the severity of the problem every year you keep a gas car running,” Durant explained.

“It affects your air quality, our sulphur oxide and our No. 2 and our ozone levels are way past the World Health standard. These things add to our chronic non communicable diseases in terms of the pollutants, articulate matters that stay in your system. Decarbonization is definitely very important for us in the region.”

Durant said Government’s decision to purchase just over 40 electric buses had resulted in a savings of $200 million in fossil fuel purchases in 2020.

He said Government’s recent move to reduce duties on electric vehicles was part of its push to encourage Barbadians to move away from fossil fuel vehicles and to cleaner sources of energy.
randybennett@barbadostoday.bb