Joe Biden will ramp up his climate change policies on Thursday by signing an executive order calling for half of all new vehicles sold in the US to be electric by 2030 as part of plans to slash transport emissions.
The US president will announce the target as he lays out plans to reinstate and toughen aggressive Obama-era rules on fuel efficiency and vehicle emissions that were gutted by former president Donald Trump.
The world’s second-largest emitter of greenhouse gases has lagged behind China and Europe in the take-up of electric vehicles. In the US they comprise about 2 per cent of the market and Tesla dominates sales, against about 6 per cent in China, 10 per cent in Europe and 11 per cent in the UK.