Toespraak van staatssecretaris Dijksma bij het Zero Emission Vehicles Event

Toespraak | 10-12-2015

Ladies and gentlemen,

If you study history, you will see that the world has always been in transition. In the 19th century, the world made the big transition from wind to steam. You all know what happened: steam engines became more and more powerful and gradually steamships took over from sailing vessels. A similar transition occurred later when ships’ steam engines were eventually replaced by diesel engines.

Transitions still take place all the time. And they will continue to do so, because we can go on building on the achievements of our ancestors, reaching ever greater heights. Transi-tions are mostly about the wide uptake of 'new' innovations. In the case of zero emission vehicles it's actually about the uptake of an 'old' innovation. The electric car was introduced over a century ago, and for a while it even had the biggest share in early fleets. But now this 'old' innovation is making an impressive come-back.

It's exciting to see that more and more car makers from all around world are developing an producing mass market zero emission cars. The transition to zero emission mobility is, in my opinion unstoppable, and also absolutely necessary to make our world safe, sustainable and livable. In the Transport sector, electrification isn’t limited to passengers vehicles. We’re also seeing promising developments in the field of buses, light and heavy-duty vehicles and in the maritime sector.

Yesterday we published the 80 Days Campaign on climate action in transport. Featuring many promising examples to inspire transport stakeholders. Zero emission transport is for a real. Growing consumer demand and market forces are driving the development of more sustainable transport.

I want to thank everyone involved for their excellent contributions! The 80 Days Campaign still has another 3 days to go. What should we do next? What is needed to make electric transport a success?

In my opinion, we need to take three important steps:  

First. Forge coalitions for exchanging information and sharing lessons learned and establish partnerships between governments and industry.

Second. Draft an agenda on the further improvement of battery technologies and reduce the CO2 intensity.

Third, Repeat experiments to increase their reliability and step up the pace of change.

Ladies en Gentlemen. This high-level event is a confirmation of our good cooperation, especially between the Netherlands and California, on the further development of zero-emission vehicles. I am very pleased that a growing number of regions, states and countries are joining now our initiative.

Today we host this high-level event on zero-emission vehicles with public and private organizations, and will discuss the future of zero-emission vehicles  I wish you every success.

Thank you.