Greenhouse Gas Emissions Overview

Climate change is the result of an increase in heat-trapping (greenhouse) gases in the atmosphere. Carbon dioxide (CO2) is the major long-lived greenhouse gas (GHG). The burning of fossil fuels (to provide electricity, heat and transportation, and to support industry and agriculture), as well as deforestation, lead to emissions of CO2 and increased levels of atmospheric CO2.

Global CO2 Emissions

Globally, emissions from light-duty vehicles comprise about 11 percent of all fossil fuel CO2 emissions. In the United States, cars and light-duty trucks account for approximately 20 percent of fossil fuel CO2 emissions, or approximately 4 percent of global fossil fuel CO2 emissions. In Europe, passenger cars and light-duty trucks account for approximately 17 percent of fossil fuel CO2 emissions, or about 3 percent of global fossil fuel CO2 emissions (see Global Fossil Fuel CO2 Emissions).

Until very recently, the United States was the largest CO2 emitter. It is now widely believed that China has overtaken the U.S. in CO2 emissions, although per capita emissions of CO2 in the U.S. remain substantially higher than those in China.

Life-Cycle Vehicle Emissions

Most of the life-cycle CO2 emissions from vehicles are released when the vehicles are driven, rather than when they are made or disposed of. As vehicle fuel efficiency improves and lower-carbon fuels are made available, the relative contribution of CO2 emissions from the fuel-consumption phase will likely decrease (see Life-Cycle Assessment of Vehicle CO2 Emissions).

Ford's Greenhouse Gas Emissions

GHG emissions attributable to Ford's activities include emissions from our facilities, from the transportation of our products and people, from the vehicles we produce once they are in use by customers, and from our suppliers. In this report, we provide data on CO2 emissions from our facilities and our U.S. and European new products. Additional information on our GHG footprint is found below.

Greenhouse Gas Emissions Snapshot

In 2001, we estimated the greenhouse gas emissions from our operations and products as part of an assessment of the impact of the climate change issue on our Company. We updated this estimate for our 2006/7 report.

Many assumptions were required to generate the estimate, and we do not control all of the factors that influence its magnitude. Therefore, we do not use this estimate as an ongoing performance measure. We intend to continue to reduce our facility GHG emissions, improve the energy efficiency of our operations and the vehicles we sell, closely track those results and update the estimate in the future.

Supply Chain

We are currently evaluating climate change risks and opportunities across our supply chain and searching for new opportunities and relationships that will enhance supplier environmental performance. Within the Aligned Business Framework agreement with suppliers, environmental leadership is integral to overall business performance metrics. Climate-change-related activities are highlighted as potential leadership opportunities.

In addition, our requirement that suppliers implement robust environmental management systems will better enable them to understand, measure and report their emissions. We also will seek out opportunities to partner with suppliers to improve the greenhouse gas emissions performance of our products and processes, and improve energy efficiency throughout the life-cycle, including the supply chain.

Beyond CO2

We are also addressing other (non-CO2) greenhouse gases such as hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs), perfluorocarbons (PFCs), nitrous oxide (N2O) and sulfur hexafluoride (SF6). We have prohibited SF6 in tires and PFCs in open systems since 1999. We are minimizing the use of HFCs in vehicle air conditioning and prohibit the use of HFCs in other on-board vehicle applications (e.g., as used in some spare tire kits). We are working with our suppliers to optimize air conditioning efficiency, reduce refrigerant leakage rates and investigate alternatives. We are also actively conducting research to evaluate the environmental fates of potential alternative air conditioning refrigerants to replace HFC-134a and have made our research data available to the scientific community. We prohibited the use of SF6 in magnesium casting as of January 2004 through our Restricted Substance Management Standard.

The vast majority of the life-cycle greenhouse gases associated with motor vehicle use are in the form of CO2; relatively small amounts of other greenhouse gases are emitted. A small amount of methane (CH4) is formed in the engine and emitted into the atmosphere. We have assessed the contribution to climate change made by methane emissions from vehicles as about 0.3 to 0.4 percent of that of the CO2 emissions from vehicles. We also try to minimize N2O tailpipe emissions. We have assessed the contribution to climate change from N2O emissions from vehicle tailpipes (not including potential emissions associated with fuel production) as about 1 to 3 percent of that of the tailpipe CO2 emissions from vehicles. We are in the process of assessing N2O emissions associated with fuel (especially biofuel) production.