Practical Solutions That Will Create A Future In Sustainble Transportation

As the future leaves fossil fuels in the ground, the world’s infrastructure is witnessing a rising demand for electric vehicles. EV batteries require minerals like cobalt and lithium, whose environmental and social impacts are anything but green. However, progressive think tank Climate and Community Project believes the globe can achieve zero emissions by 2050 through a variety of interwoven decarbonization solutions.

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Decreasing Electric Vehicle Battery Size‍

The current average car battery in the US is double the size of a decade ago, and uses 70 Kilowatts per hour, double the energy of the global average of 40kWh. Some of the newest large electric vehicles, like the e-Hummer and Tesla, wield huge batteries that end up having similar emissions to a fossil fuel car. However, if companies decrease the size of their cars and electric vehicle batteries, the technology will be affordable to more Americans. Our cars would shrink in size to what is more commonly seen in Europe and East Asia, resulting in safer roads for both pedestrians and drivers. According to the study, smaller EV batteries can also decrease lithium demand up to 42%, even if by 2050 we operate in a car-centric world similar to today’s reality.  

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Maximizing Lithium Recycling‍

Ideally, an electric vehicle battery will last at least a decade. However, what will happen at the end of its life in a car? The study proposes investing in recycling policies that will force more companies and cities to use recycled batteries in buses or its stripped materials in other uses. Other countries are already enforcing similar policies: the European Union requires manufacturers to use recycled materials in new lithium ion batteries. Landfilling batteries has been banned since 2006. In 2021, China led the world in lithium battery recycling, and will have nearly 4x the amount of batteries to recycle by 2030.

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Reducing Car Dependency

Climate and Community Project’s study found the most effective way to slash lithium emissions is to eliminate a future dependent on cars. Most public spaces in US cities are exclusively or practically only for cars. Streets make up 80% of all public space in US cities, a great percentage of which is for parking. Imagine suburbanized towns transforming huge parking lots into walkable neighborhoods where citizens can easily reach places of work, business, and socialization. In Paris, car use has decreased 45% since 1990 due to policies that increase bike lanes, lower speed limits, create car-free zones, and improve pedestrian comfort. 

Meanwhile cities like Vienna, Amsterdam, and Bogota have witnessed increased cycling due to bike-friendly policies. One option growing in popularity in the US are ebikes, which use significantly less lithium on the battery level per person when compared to any other electric transportation options, even buses. Denver, Colorado experimented with ebike subsidies and found it effectively got more people out of their cars, providing an affordable option for transportation. 

Prioritizing Public Transit 

In order to truly reduce car dependency, public transportation needs a serious overhaul in the United States. Many countries around the world have widely accessible forms of transportation that serve all incomes, from colectivo shuttles in Mexico to matatus in Kenya. When the auto industry took over American city public transportation in the 1930s and 40s, they purposely made these systems ineffective to encourage more Americans to purchase automobiles. Highways still tend to get four times as much federal funding as public transportation. But increased funding towards public transportation can improve those systems once again. Whether a city expands their train stations or smaller towns implement rideshares and bus systems, creating points of access near frequented areas will ensure an increase in ridership. Furthermore, free public transit is already a reality in over a dozen cities in the United States in order to boost ridership and combat emissions. 

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The Bottom Line: Decreasing Consumption

Citizens in the United States and Europe must lower energy consumption rates per person, which are the highest in the world. Climate and Community Project’s study outlined four scenarios that played with each of these factors to see how lithium emissions could be reduced. It found that if American cities are able to harness the public transportation efficiency, reduced car dependence, and small EV battery sizes of cities like Vienna and London, with well-enforced recycling regulations, then lithium demand would drop low enough to bring emissions to near zero. The 400 new lithium mines needed by 2030 would be rendered unnecessary, allowing local communities to live in peace. Overall, it will take ordinary people to take responsibility for the shared stewardship of the planet by demanding policy that favors public transit, recycled lithium batteries, and Indigenous land sovereignty. 

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Learn More 

• Join the American Public Transportation Association to begin advocating for more national policy that prioritizes public transit. 
• Youth can organize with their local chapter of the Sunrise Movement, whose Green New Deal for Communities Campaign focuses on advocating for public transit initiatives in local government.
• Lower your own emissions wherever you can! Take the bus, ride your bike, or carpool with a friend.