The global warming crisis is encouraging us to use renewable energy. Electric vehicles are the best option for removing pollutants to prevent further greenhouse gas emissions.
Last year was full of bitter weather news. Unprecedented heat waves swept across the Pacific Northwest. Forest fires raged in California, Oregon, Washington and neighboring states. Tropical storms spread rapidly in the Pacific. It even submerged the devastating floods of Western Europe and China. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change warned in August that climate change caused by human behavior was pushing the world in a direction that we would see more of in the future. The only way to prevent these events is to change human behavior on Earth.
To prevent this from happening, we need to dramatically reduce greenhouse gas emissions as soon as possible. To reduce carbon, we must turn to the use of renewable energy sources – and, more importantly, the decarbonization of transport – transport is responsible for about a quarter of the world’s carbon dioxide emissions.
But the path to this clean future is very difficult. There are many political and social obstacles as well as scientific obstacles in this direction. But electric vehicles are making their way through all the obstacles, and now using them as the best way to combat carbon dioxide emissions is on the agenda of many communities.
“Just a few years ago, a lot of carmakers thought that electric vehicles or electric vehicles might be a passing fad, and after a while, the stock market,” said Gill Tal, director of the Plugin Electric and Hybrid Vehicle Research Center at the University of California. Get out. “But today it is clear to everyone that electric vehicles are sustainable.”
Globally, sales of electric vehicles in the first half of 2021 have increased significantly. Sales rose 160 percent from last year – electric car sales rose 46 percent, even at a time when car sales were struggling with the Corona virus epidemic. Meanwhile, car companies such as General Motors, Volkswagen and Nissan are planning to launch new models of electric vehicles in the next decade. GM and Honda have pledged to electrify all their vehicles by 2035 and 2040, respectively. Ford also unveiled electric versions of some of its cars.
“Apart from consumer demand for electric vehicles, which is boosting sales, what is more important is the policy of the government, which is putting pressure on carmakers to increase production of electric vehicles,” says Tal. The EU’s tough greenhouse gas emissions laws in 2021 have led automakers that previously produced electric vehicles to increase production significantly. In 2020, China committed to increase its electric car sales by 40% by 2030. They must phase out internal combustion engines.
In the United States, where transportation is the largest producer of greenhouse gases, the Joe Biden government set a goal of increasing sales of electric vehicles by 50 percent over the next decade – both plug-in hybrids and all-electric vehicles. Today, the share of electric car sales in this country is 2.5%. The state of California has announced that by 2035 all new cars and trucks should have zero emissions.
There are clear indications that automakers are committed to building and selling electric vehicles. In September, Ford announced plans to build two new complexes for electric trucks in Tennessee and Kentucky. “The climate change crisis that we have all come to understand in recent years has increased people’s interest in electric vehicles,” said Ford CEO Jim Farley.
“We have seen drastic changes in the climate,” he said. “So people should look at these vehicles not only as a tool to use, but also as nature-friendly.”
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The International Energy Agency reported this year that although the electric car market is growing rapidly, it is still not fast enough to meet the goals of the Paris greenhouse gas emissions meeting. In order for the world to reach zero net pollution by 2050 – when carbon emissions to the atmosphere are balanced by the amount of carbon removed – electric vehicles must increase their current world sales from 5% to 60% by 2030. Bring them.
Electric vehicles
Researchers reported in the journal Climate Change in 2020 that in the United States, even if the Biden government makes a major decision on electric vehicles, the transportation sector still falls far short of its true goals of reducing emissions. Will have. To achieve the planned goals, electric cars must account for 90% of new car sales in the country by 2050 – otherwise the only way is for people to use their cars much less.
To replace fossil fuel vehicles with electric vehicles, the options that these vehicles provide to the owner must meet several basic criteria. The price of new and used electric cars must be reduced. Charging stations should be accessible and affordable for everyone – including those who live in homes without access to electricity. Battery life should also be increased. About five years ago, cars needed to be recharged after traveling about 100 miles. Today, on average, it takes about 250 miles – approximately the distance from New York to Washington – to recharge the car – but unfortunately the number of stations within that distance is very small.
The batteries of these cars need metals that are scarce. In other words, they are difficult to access or they are produced in mining operations where human rights issues make them difficult. Although there are solutions to overcome these problems, recycling batteries to reduce material substitution is another important issue that has occupied the minds of automakers.
We need to keep in mind that electric vehicles alone are not enough to prevent the adverse effects of climate change and that many other activities on Earth are needed.
