Welcome to Decarbonizing Transportation by Andrew Salzberg. Every two weeks (or so) I go deep on one topic and present a roundup of the latest decarbonization news at the bottom of the email.
Maybe We Could Actually Pull This Off?
April was a big month for the American climate movement. It started with the most ambitious US infrastructure proposal in my lifetime, including the most explicit focus on climate change we’ve ever seen. It ended with a climate summit where Joe Biden announced a plan to cut US emissions in half in ten years, and a few other countries joined in.
Announcing targets is not the same as meeting them, and outlining a bill is not the same as getting it through congress. But even with those caveats, April 2021 felt like a Moment. We moved from a president who believed climate change was a Chinese hoax to one who is attempting to rally world leaders (including China) to step up their commitments.
I’m old enough to feel how remarkable it all is. I started getting deep into the climate in the mid 2000s. In hindsight, that was a period of relative prominence for climate action. California’s pathbreaking Global Warming Solutions Act and An Inconvenient Truth were both products of 2006. But it was hard to feel optimistic at the time; it was painful watching the Kyoto Protocol, a major milestone of global climate action, fall apart.
Now, a growing number of the worlds’ largest countries and companies are announcing commitments to zero out their emissions in a few decades. That would have been unimaginable in 2006. Obviously, we shouldn’t take their word for it. There’s an infinite amount of pressure that will be required to hold countries and companies to their targets. But we also shouldn’t discount how meaningful the change has been over the last few years, or how remarkable it is that the COVID pandemic has not derailed political progress on climate.
There’s a lot of effort expended on imagining how bad the world might get if we continue to pump carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. But last month gave us a glimpse of what things might look like if we manage to bring emissions to zero. What if we bend the emissions curve down (as we’re doing with electric power), and demonstrate that humanity can collectively manage a seemingly intractable problem? A planet where we actually reach net zero emissions by 2050 would be, by necessity, one where we successfully create an unprecedented level of international cooperation. Could that create the muscle memory necessary to tackle other problems and usher in a new era of more equitably shared prosperity?
It’s not an easy time to be optimistic about global cooperation. We’ve witnessed the fracturing of international institutions under a president who made them his enemy. The COVID vaccine rollout has been anything but a model of north-south cooperation. I’m not ready to say that a future where we successfully address climate change is likely, but I’m starting to feel like it might be possible. That change felt worth putting down on paper.
Of course, the only reason we’ve gotten this far is because people were scared enough about where the climate is heading to start to tackle the problem. If we’re going to get anywhere, we need to keep the pressure up. And if you want to bend the emissions curve, you need more than announcements, you need action.
That’s one reason the American Jobs Plan - the US climate plan that does its best to avoid saying the word ‘climate’ - is so vital. It’s the most ambitious climate plan ever put forward in the US, and it takes a radically different approach to the problem than the last time around. As you’ve probably already heard, it includes enormous sums for clean transportation - $174 billion for electric vehicles, $85 billion for public transportation. The plan covers a lot of the ground we cover in this newsletter, so we’ll be keeping a close eye on it as it works its way through congress. It would be a huge step in the right direction if it can get over the line.
A month that started with an ambitious US climate plan and ended with global leaders stepping up their commitments on climate action is a big one. It’s far from the last one we’ll need.
New & Worth a Read
The International Energy Agency releases a major report on global pathways to net zero emissions by 2050. Highlights: a complete end to new fossil fuel development required immediately, and no internal combustion car sales starting 2035.
Ford launches an electric version of the F-150, the best selling passenger vehicle in North America. The president’s take? “This sucker’s quick.”
How parking destroys cities.
How much more driving will that new highway create? There’s a tool for that.
A plan to overcome zoning obstacles by leveraging infrastructure funding.
EV SPACs were hot - they’re coming back to earth.
The White House releases more info on their $174 Billion Electric Vehicle proposal.
Lots on 2nd hand EVs (a favorite topic of this newsletter): In China, nobody wants them. How to put new batteries in old ones. How to reuse their batteries, or, maybe recycle them.
Maybe we’ll get an electric US postal service fleet after all?
California moves to mandate 90% of ridehail miles be electric by 2030. Related: Uber working with with Arrival on an electric ridehail vehicle.
A Bloomberg deep dive on batteries. Dave Roberts on the same topic.
China is leading the transition to electric vehicles.
$73 Billion could convert every US bus to zero emission technology. More here.
Teslas as NYC taxis. London has dedicated EV models for black cabs.
New report on how the US can meet its commitment to cut emissions in half by 2030. No new fossil fuel car sales after 2030, and a 20% cut in per capita miles traveled.
US electricity emissions are halfway to zero.
1910 map of Chicago’s electric vehicle charging stations.
Why you should love the electric hummer, according to the WSJ. My take here.
How the US climate plan stacks up internationally. How close are we to hitting climate targets?
Post-COVID, people plan to drive more, fly less.
The UK will include international aviation and shipping emissions in its carbon budgets.
Thailand to end internal combustion engine car sales by 2035. First country in Southeast Asia to adopt the policy.
Why we need to electrify the US school bus fleet.
France is offering subsidies to trade your car for an ebike, and banning short haul flights.
New US fuel economy standards are due by the end of July. A new report suggests all new US vehicles can be electric by 2035.
The path to 500,000 public charging stations.
A new global platform to raise ambition on reducing emissions from road transport ahead of COP 26, the big climate event this fall.
Till next time,
Andrew
I'm not convinced nor swayed by manipulative salesmanship. I'd rather read reports on the prospect of reducing VMT in all sectors of transportation; or a report on equitable battery resource distribution; or rerports on potential for rooftop PV solar vs vast field arrays reliant upon long-distance transmission lines and complex regional utility grids that remain vulnerable to power outage. I'd rather readers learned why standard truck chassis do not convert to BEV nor PHEV very well, yet that's what manufacturers will produce and sell to ignorant consumers, corrupt municipal transit agencies, paratransit lift-van service providers and even the crappy 1950's Yellow school bus is good enough for road crews and prisoners, so they're good enough for children. Corporate America is led by a gang of elitist liars.