Mercedes-Benz Announces Major New Strategy to Fight Climate Change

Mercedes-Benz Announces Major New Strategy to Fight Climate Change
With atmospheric carbon dioxide now at the highest levels in the past 800,000 years, finding solutions to what is clearly turning into the greatest challenge humans have ever faced has become an emergency, one some companies are already responding to.

Mercedes-Benz Announces Major New Strategy to Fight Climate Change

This week, reports began coming in from the Mauna Loa Observatory in Hawaii showing carbon dioxide levels of 415 parts per million on Friday. That's the highest level since before humans walked this Earth. 

Coincidentally, at about the same time Mercedes-Benz offered a glimpse of a possible solution by announcing its most ambitious climate change-fighting strategy in years.

Called Ambition2039, the plan calls for the company to have a carbon-neutral passenger car fleet by 2029, backed by half of its new car fleet being plug-in hybrid or purely electric. The announcement was made in Olso, at a public test drive for the new EQC SUV.

Mercedes promises a “fundamental transformation of our company within less than three product cycles” that will make use of both existing and future technologies to create a carbon neutral manufacturing process and resulting products.

Starting this year, the carmaker eyes the expansion of the so-called Factory 56 production processes to all European plants, a process that should be complete in 2022. Then Mercedes will start working with suppliers and partners to help them reduce their contribution to the world’s pollution, and ultimately green Mercedes cars should roam the streets by two decades from now.

“By 2030 we aim to have electric models make up more than half of our car sales – that includes all-electric cars and plug-in hybrids,” promised the Germans.

Of course, Mercedes’ commitment is far from enough to save our planet. Should the current trend continue, estimates are that by the middle of next century the carbon levels in our atmosphere will be at levels not seen for the past 56 million years.

Mercedes' detailed plan can be found in the document attached below.

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