Transportation revamp key to hitting climate change goals, says US

If the planet is to achieve net-zero emissions by the year 2050, countries will have to radically alter how their transportation systems work and use more efficient fuel supplies from the near future, senior US officials said.

At least one US State Department official stressed that transportation and aviation are two major sources of emissions in the United States and some developing countries.

Speaking during a virtual briefing held by the US State Department and the Foreign Press Centre, Andrew Wishnia, Deputy Assistant Secretary for Climate Policy at the US Department of Transportation (USDOT) said that inclusive and equitable measures are needed if countries are to achieve their goals both in 2030 and in 2050.

“Fuel economy has got to be part of our climate strategy,” he said, adding, however, that mileage efficiency is just one component required to hit the 2050 net-zero target.

He added that the United States, for one, is looking at three other primary measures to reduce emissions: reducing trips, shifting trips and improving trips.

“In reducing trips, we don’t necessarily want to force folks out of their car, but we want to provide as many options as possible for accessibility…[such as] improved bicycle infrastructure, improved pedestrian infrastructure to have what we call more ‘complete streets.’ This reduces traffic speeds, and it also provides options for people to be able to go from one place to another more comfortably on a bicycle or by walking. In shifting trips, we want to provide options for rail and other less carbon-intensive forms of transportation. In improving trips, we want to focus on transportation electrification and on-road pricing strategies,” he said.

As part of the latter strategy, Jonathan Pershing, senior advisor to the State Department’s Special Presidential Envoy for Climate, John Kerry, added that the Biden administration had committed to the installation of 5,00,000 charging stations to build consumer confidence in electric vehicles and allay fears that the battery may die out on a jaunt to get groceries.

According to Wishnia, discussions are ongoing for a $174 billion fund for transportation electrification.

But the deployment of electric vehicles themselves come with cons, Pershing pointed out. In the United States for one, while the single largest share of emissions in the United States comes from the transportation sector, the power sector – generating electricity – comes second, followed by industrial activity.

“Once you’ve got an electric vehicle, you then have to charge it, and where is the power going to come from? At the moment, the US energy system has a pretty heavy share of fossil-intensive sources, including coal and gas. We are looking at how to decarbonize the power sector. At the other end, it is clear that we can do a fair amount with electricity in managing our industrial emissions. A lot of the lower-temperature industrial emissions can be managed with electric motors and electric heat. That’s a way to kind of take the same clean electricity and apply it to that sector,” Pershing said.

Despite the associated challenges associated with EV use, for Wishnia, one omnipresent positive net effect of great EV use relates to environmental justice communities, which the United States categorises as those communities most impacted by environmental harms.

“For far too long environmental justice communities were neglected by our surface transportation systems, particularly as part of the buildout of the Eisenhower Interstate System. [However], the direction from President Biden is to make sure that 40% of transport investments and all spending in some way, shape, or form contemplates environmental justice communities,” he said.

The first beneficiaries, Wishnia claimed, would be those people living along highways and consequently, at high risk of being exposed to local air pollution.

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