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Sep 7 • 10 tweets • 4 min read
BREAKING:
Huge numbers of Australians have owned, driven and trusted Toyota cars over the years, so this may come as pretty shocking..
Turns out #Toyota has grim record of greenwashing and lobbying against measures to reduce climate pollution from cars.
New reports out today..🧵
Toyota has been ranked dead last in the Auto Environment Guide for its lobbying against climate action, refusal to embrace electric vehicles, and continued advocacy for highly polluting hybrids: greenpeace.org/static/planet4…
Toyota’s dismal global record had already caused it to be ranked in the worst three on the @InfluenceMap list of global corporations most negatively influencing Paris-aligned climate policy:
influencemap.org/report/The-Car…
The motivation is narrow here. Toyota is going with a vested commercial interest in trying to delay the transition to cleaner cars for as long as possible:
greenpeace.org.au/act/electrify-…
Right now, huge progress is possible because the Australian government is currently considering the introduction of fuel efficiency standards regulating climate pollution from cars.
This could be a big breakthrough:
smh.com.au/politics/feder…
Critically, transport is Australia’s fastest-growing source of climate pollution, with light passenger vehicles responsible for 60% of transport emissions.
Some of the world’s dirtiest and most expensive to run cars are dumped on Australia:
climatecouncil.org.au/how-australia-…
Making a rapid shift to cleaner electric vehicles is a vital part of Australia’s energy transformation.
@ClimateworksCtr research shows that in order to hit net zero by 2050, 50-76% of new car sales in Australia must be electric by 2030:
climate-solutions.greenpeace.org.au/explained-how-…
But there is a real risk that the vested interests of fossil fuel corporations will try to frustrate progress as they have so often before: theconversation.com/how-to-deal-wi…
We already know, that Toyota is the largest member of the Federal Chamber of Automotive Industries, whose 'secret plan' to slow the electric vehicle transition in Australia was exposed in August this year: smh.com.au/national/revea…
The world is in a state of climate emergency.
For a brand with the power of Toyota, it is unthinkable that this kind of negative lobbying would continue.
C'mon Toyota, it's time to stop the bad stuff out, do the right thing, and get fully behind Australia's EV transformation.

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More from @David_Ritter

David Ritter Profile picture
Aug 12
This week people were angered to find that massive polluter @WoodsideEnergy is sponsoring parliament's midwinter ball.
It's just one tactic in Woodside's industrial scale 'reputation washing' strategy to enable it to keep on polluting. Thread…
🧵 #auspol
tinyurl.com/yywm7xsz
Woodside’s problem is that it makes profit by mining and selling oil and gas - fossil fuels that are driving the climate emergency.
Indeed Woodside is now one of the ten biggest oil and gas majors in the world - and the only one based in Australia:
marketindex.com.au/news/a-merged-…
In Australia, Woodside is best known as a gas producer.
As @adamlmorton noted this week in a helpful explainer piece, “gas is a central driver of the climate emergency”:
theguardian.com/commentisfree/…
Read 25 tweets
David Ritter Profile picture
Jul 25
Lest we forget…
As the new Australian Parliament begins work, it is worth remembering that the last government led by @ScotMorrison was truly a ‘wrecking crew’.
Post-election revelations have reminded us just how much damage they did.
Here’s a thread…
🧵#auspol #wreckingcrew
Infamously, Scott Morrison indicated to fellow believers at his church last weekend that it is right not to have trust in government. 'Wrecking crew' politicians want none of us to have trust in government. theguardian.com/australia-news…
A decade or so ago, US commentator Tom Frank coined the idea of ‘wrecking crew’ politicians who - perversely - deliberately or recklessly seek to govern badly in order to advance an extreme ideological agenda: tcfrank.com/product/the-wr…
Read 17 tweets
David Ritter Profile picture
Jul 19
Angry about yesterday’s State of the Environment report?
Well, there’s an opportunity to do something practical within the next 24 hours, by lodging an appeal against Woodside being allowed to extend massive fossil gas polluting operations until 2070.🧵
soe.dcceew.gov.au
The background is that WA’s environmental agency (EPA) has recommended that this extension to Woodside’s vast pollution operations be approved - which would mean locking around 50 years’ more of climate-wrecking fossil gas extraction on a massive scale: theguardian.com/australia-news…
The EPA did not assess the impacts from the gas when it is actually burned by end-users.
Yet, if approved, it is estimated that the North West Shelf extension would pump out 4.3 billion tonnes of pollution from climate-wrecking gas over the coming decades: abc.net.au/news/2022-06-3…
Read 7 tweets
David Ritter Profile picture
Jul 4
Hey @AngusTaylorMP you look surprised by the catastrophic flooding events.
Can this be because you have been ignoring the warnings about climate change impacts?
Here's a dozen or so expert warnings about increases in storms and floods that you may have ignored...
🧵: #auspol
The truth is that we have long known, for decades, that for each degree that our atmosphere warms, it can hold 7% more water. This causes heavier rainfall and in turn increased flood risk: int-res.com/articles/cr_oa…
14 years ago, in 2007, the Rudd Government commissioned the Garnaut Climate Change Review, which clearly identified that climate change would lead to “longer dry spells broken by heavier rainfall events” and floods: webarchive.nla.gov.au/awa/2019050908…
Read 23 tweets
David Ritter Profile picture
Jun 3
This week's electricity price spikes are largely due to Australia’s continued reliance on dirty, ageing, expensive coal and gas.
This debacle has been years in the making.
The Morrison government failed to do its job and coal and gas vested interests fought change. 🧵#auspol
While the price hikes are in part due to the cold snap increasing demand plus a global energy supply squeeze from the Ukraine war, the main culprit is the fossil fuel industry, which has persistently attempted to wreck Australia’s transition to cleaner, cheaper renewable energy:
Research by @DrAdamLucas found that fossil fuel corporations had ‘constructed a covert network of lobbyists and revolving door appointments which has ensured that industry interests continue to dominate Australia’s energy policy’: sciencedirect.com/science/articl…
Read 13 tweets
David Ritter Profile picture
May 30
Today, Australia’s largest domestic climate polluter @AGLAustralia abandoned plans to ‘demerge’, to keep burning coal until the 2040s.
Combined with last weekend’s election result, this is a watershed for climate action in Australia.
Let’s unpack what it means 🧵: #ausbiz #auspol
@AGLAustralia is our country’s biggest climate polluter responsible for 10% of our annual domestic greenhouse gas emissions.
What happened today is totally unprecedented.
The restructure of a massive iconic corporation collapsed because of a failure to act on climate change.
To quote my colleague @Glenn_Walker_ AGL’s leadership has presided over the “most bungled and misguided attempt at a corporate restructure in Australian history”.
But it is a fiasco that was a long time in the making…
investordaily.com.au/markets/51424-…
Read 23 tweets

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