America’s environmentalists place undue emphasis on the role of automobiles in greenhouse gas emissions. Their goal of trying to reduce emissions by getting people out of their cars is expensive, self-defeating, and probably unnecessary.
According to the EPA, cars and light trucks emit less than 17 percent of the human-caused greenhouse gases produced in America. Moreover, both the percentage and the absolute level of auto emissions are steadily declining.
Meanwhile, the United States produces only about one seventh of the human-caused greenhouse gases produced in the world–about 6 out of 42 gigatons–and that too is declining (though the worldwide total is increasing). While one seventh is a lot for a country that has only about 4 percent of the world’s population, emissions in other parts of the world are growing rapidly.
