For three decades, the state of California in the United States has led the fight to control tailpipe pollution, with countless policies promoting cleaner fuel, carpooling, public transportation and its signature strategy, the electric vehicle (EV).
Californians now buy more than half of all EVs sold in the US, and the state’s vehicle-pollution policies have provided a model being adopted around the world.
Reuters Newsagency reports, however, they are not working at home, by the state’s own measure.
Tailpipe pollution in California is going up, not down, despite billions of dollars spent by one of the most environmentally progressive governments on earth.
“The strategies that we’ve used up until now just haven’t been effective,” Mary Nichols, the head of the California Air Resources Board (CARB), told Reuters.
That failure has less to do with energy or environmental policies and more with decades-old urban planning decisions that, like many Australian cities, made California, and especially Los Angeles, a haven for sprawling development of single-family homes and long commutes, according to state officials.
California’s struggle bodes poorly for other major US cities with similar sprawl and expensive urban housing, such as Houston, Atlanta, and others that planned their cities around cars, and casts doubt on how quickly the US can reduce greenhouse gas emissions amid urgent warnings from scientists about climate change.
The US is the world’s second-biggest carbon dioxide emitter behind China, at over 5.1 billion tonnes in 2017, according to the US Energy Information Administration.
The state’s troubles also hold lessons for massive economies such as China and India that hope to control pollution from vehicles as they rapidly urbanise.
Transportation is tied with power generation as America’s leading source of carbon dioxide emissions, at 28 per cent, according to the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), and it takes top billing in California, at about 40 per cent.
It makes up a smaller share in the rest of the world, where car ownership is lower but likely to grow.
California’s carbon emissions amounted to 429 million tonnes in 2016, the last year for which data is available.
That’s the lowest level since 1990 thanks to a shift away from coal-fired electricity towards natural gas, solar and wind.
Reuters reports its next target, calling for a further 40 per cent cut by 2030, will be out of reach without transformative changes in state residents’ driving habits, CARB said in a report published late last year.
As the state struggles to cut its own vehicle pollution, California officials are also fighting an effort by the administration of U. President Donald Trump to weaken national standards for automobile emissions.
California’s tailpipe emissions have risen five per cent since 2013, according to CARB data, as population growth, urban sprawl, and a devotion to one’s own car produced longer commutes and choking traffic.
The increase came even as the state finally achieved traction in promoting electric and hybrid vehicles, some 1.18 million of which have been sold in the state since 2011, according to the Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers.
The government last year set a target of five million electric vehicles by 2030.
Reuters reports even hitting that goal, by no means assured, will not be near enough to allow the state to meet its goal for carbon reduction, which would require California drivers to reduce per capita miles travelled by 25 per cent, CARB said in its report.
The state has also boosted spending on public transport by about 60 per cent over the past decade, according to CARB.
However, transit options are poorly suited for California’s vast expanses of suburban-style neighbourhoods.
“If we keep thinking we are going to overcome a 1950s system overnight, that’s wrong,” said Hasan Ikhrata, executive director of the San Diego Association of Governments, the city’s main public planning body.
The US has pledged to cut carbon emissions by between 26 to 28 per cent from 2005 levels by 2030 under the United Nations sponsored Paris Agreement, aimed at fighting climate change, reached by nearly 200 countries in 2015.
While President Trump has signalled his intention to pull the US out of the accord, a group of states led by California wants to ensure the US meets its commitments, which scientists call critical to avoiding the most devastating effects of climate change.
Transportation emissions have also been rising in other major cities such as Atlanta, Philadelphia, and San Antonio, according to city climate emissions reports from recent years, and have climbed about 21 percent nationwide since 1990, according to the EPA.
Other parts of the world could have an easier time.
In Europe, residents of densely populated cities face high fuel taxes, encouraging reduced car travel.
Many European cities have seen relatively high levels of electric car adoption, and in China and India, which also have lofty electric vehicle targets, major cities are still being built, with pollution control in mind.
“They are much better able to include this kind of planning into their urban designs,” said John German, a senior fellow with the non-profit International Council on Clean Transportation.
California officials, eager to maintain the state’s leadership role on climate action, hope to pave the way for a fix to entrenched urban sprawl.
Los Angeles is mulling a proposal to charge drivers during rush hour and use that money to make public transit free by 2028, according to Metro Chief Executive Phillip Washington.
Other options include waiving fees for pooled rides to and from airports and adding safety lanes for scooters and bikes, said Dan Sperling, director of the Institute of Transportation Studies at the University of California, Davis.
CARB Deputy Executive Officer Kurt Karperos said the state is planning talks with municipal governments to discuss controlling emissions through city planning.
Such efforts could include lower-cost housing in urban centres to bring people closer to work, and the elimination of building codes requiring parking spots to encourage more drop-off carpooling, according to experts.
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What a great issue. All articles really interesting.