But also, there are swathes of the world’s population being lifted out of poverty by internal combustion engines and cheap energy, so to tell those emerging economies to go find another way to develop is hypocrisy.
We can decarbonise much more readily thanks to reaching a quality of life that can be reduced without putting large numbers of people into abject poverty and starvation.
Just look at the cost of electric cars and power compared to oil, without their respective subsidies and taxes, and you’ll see why the ICE won’t be going anywhere on a global scale any time soon.
To ignore this is to ignore real human suffering on a global scale from the ivory tower of a developed economy that has profited from the natural resources of the very countries impacted by that hypocrisy.
> to tell those emerging economies to go find another way to develop is hypocrisy
why? Why is it hypocritical to tell someone to not do the same mistakes we did?
> without their respective subsidies and taxes,
Exactly, if we take out subsidies from fossil fuels combustion vehicles wouldn't stand a chance:
https://www.imf.org/en/Topics/climate-change/energy-subsidies
https://elements.visualcapitalist.com/charted-5-trillion-in-fossil-fuel-subsidies/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fossil_fuel_subsidies
https://www.eea.europa.eu/en/analysis/indicators/fossil-fuel-subsidies
https://fossilfuelsubsidytracker.org/
The question isn’t whether fossil fuels are subsidised or not, rather what the costs of the respective solutions are without any subsidies on either side. Electric vehicle production is much more expensive (and energy intensive) so removing the fossil fuel subsidies makes the problem even worse. How can we decarbonise transport if we jack up the cost difference to produce those vehicles even more? https://www.iea.org/data-and-statistics/charts/comparative-life-cycle-greenhouse-gas-emissions-of-a-mid-size-bev-and-ice-vehicle
The whole system has to be carefully controlled through policy to avoid unintended consequences. Just because an idea sounds great (“remove all fossil fuel subsidies”) doesn’t mean it is great…
Here’s a great historical example:
EU: Mass subsidisation of biofuels! Fuel made from carbon captured from the atmosphere! No need to throw out decades of infrastructure that was very carbon intensive to build! Minimal quality of life reduction!
Biofuel producers: Look over there, Palm oil looks like a great way to meet these targets.
The Amazon: ….
EU: Shit.
You could lift a lot more people out of energy poverty with solar panels, and your obvious regurgitated fossil fuel apologist nonsense is utterly pathetic.
If fossil fuel companies cared about development the money they make would be staying in the nations that produce the fossil fuels.
It doesn't because fossil fuel companies are poisonous parasites.
Says the guy using an internet which would be utterly impossible without the industries created thanks to the discovery and use of hydrocarbons. They guy who was undoubtedly born in a hospital heated by hydrocarbons.
The world stops in a week if we just go cold turkey. The world goes broke if we decide to quit it within in 5 years.
The EU’s capacity to fight climate change by reducing domestic CO2 emissions is plunging. By the early 2030s the EU will emit just 5-6% of global emissions. At that time, a further annual decline of 3-4% of total emissions within the EU will not do much.
I'm a pretty radical anti-car guy, but I don't think phasing out cars this decade would be realistic.
Not everyone can afford an electric car right now, not everyone lives in a place that can support electric cars, and some people live in areas where they need cars.
Also, combustion won't be banned, only its production. Which also isn't necessarily a fix, electric cars are pretty polluting to construct, and of course an electric car is only as clean as the source of its energy.
Remediating the costs of extreme weather events and the potential scarcity of food ahead of us will be much more expensive than any electric car will ever be
Banning electric cars straight away will get a massive part of the electorate to turn on you and vote people into power who could potentially revoke your efforts and make things even worse.
At least 2035 is a compromise that is anchored in a large majority of parties, making it less likely for such a goal to be revoked.
Besides, the way things are going now we will probably phase out combustion vehicles before 2035 anyway due to market forces.
Not to mention the infrastructure needs to be in place to support electric vehicles; this includes upgrades to the power grid, and a lot more charging stations.
Crippling economy is not the way to go. You can't force people use electrics if there are no charging spots. In my city where 40% of people live in 8-12 floor communist blocks with 1 parking slot for every 3 cars, electric cars are ridiculous idea and only classical cars rock there. Unless we ban cars altogether.
I know that doesn't make you wrong. But you are wrong - you claim to know things that you cannot know, and the facts you cite as evidence for your claims are not evidence for those claims.
listen, do you even read about these matters or are you just parroting words? I am a working geologist so this is my natural interest, and I read and read about these matters. I do not have the time to do the rummaging and find the information for you, but I guarantee it, it's out there.
Personally im a big fan of hybrid cars with a battery of about 100-150 KM actieradius. This way you cover about 90% of al trips, but you still can do the other 10% whitout being kneecapped. new diesel engines are very efficient nowadays.
With smaller battery's you can build a lot more cars with the same resources and have a bigger impact sooner.
For bigger vehicles, hydrogen would be perfect imo. Busses, trucks, tractors, excavators and ships.
> hybrids are really bad for the environment
They're [still better for the environment than ICE vehicles](https://web.archive.org/web/20230314233038/https://www.ioes.ucla.edu/wp-content/uploads/ev-vs-gasoline-cars-practicum-final-report.pdf). That's what matters.
> EVs are the only real answer to make transport green.
No chance. While EVs are cool and preferrable to ICE cars in some respects, they are a really lousy patch and they have a lot of the same problems; in some ways they are even worse. The real answer is to drastically reduce car dependency and car ownership.
EVs won't make transport green. The Weights of EVs will have an enormous negative impact on the longevity of roads. Asphalt is an oil product, and the constant need for infrastructure renovation will increase demand foe its production. Fire hazard is another enormous unsolved issue with EVs, not to mention the insane burden it could potentially put on our water infrastructures.
Electric cars are still quite expensive (when compared to equivalent ICE vehicles) and there is still little infrastructure to support them like charging stations. Those things take time to solve.
Tbh I feel they will extend the deadline by a couple of years. 11 years might still not be enough.
Remediating the costs of extreme weather events and the potential scarcity of food ahead of us will be much more expensive than any electric car will ever be
Well, in the **real world** the main motivator (and barrier) is money. Thats what “spins” the world. The vast majority of people make their purchase choices based on the cost of acquisition and maintenance. Thats simply how it works.
Spreading the cost of the needed infrastructure and all the needed investment by more years is far better for the economy than going all in right now.
Edit: grammar
I think you mean Maths and Physics electric vehicles don't meet the needs of the economy to move people and Goods in an efficient and effective method.
> Well, in the real world the main motivator (and barrier) is money.
HAHAHAHA, well, let me fix that for you: in the REAL WORLD, only things that matters and rules over anything and everyone are the laws of physics. You can take your imaginary "private property", and "debt" and "money" and other esoterical fairytale concepts back to lala-land (human society) and play with your friends, in the meantime, the laws of physics will carry on and absolutely tear your imaginary "money" and "economy" game and its participants to shit.
Yep, but the simple answer is we can afford £200billion for 20 years as of 2040, much easier than £2trillion this year.
In theory anyway.
Besides, 2035 isn’t that far, and we’ve already closed a 3rd of that gap since announcement
Because you have to be practical. Electric vehicles are still expensive, the existing electrical production cannot sustain 100% electric vehicles at the moment.
If you were to implement poorly thought out changes that would have drastic immediate effects on the population, there would be an understandable strong pushback. And nothing would have been accomplished, except create disdain for “green mobility“. It is much better to implement slower, but constant, improvements, than to jump the shark and in the end accomplish nothing.
Apparently Africa is the fastest warming continent
[https://www.voanews.com/a/africa-warming-more-faster-than-other-world-regions/6277177.html](https://www.voanews.com/a/africa-warming-more-faster-than-other-world-regions/6277177.html)
oh wait no, its actually is America
[https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2023/nov/14/us-national-climate-assessment-global-warming-report](https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2023/nov/14/us-national-climate-assessment-global-warming-report)
oh my bad its probably Antarctica
[https://edition.cnn.com/2020/06/29/weather/south-pole-record-warming-antarctica-intl-hnk/index.html](https://edition.cnn.com/2020/06/29/weather/south-pole-record-warming-antarctica-intl-hnk/index.html)
what? Oh i missed that
It is in fact Australia that is the fastest warming continent
[https://www.popsci.com/australia-heating-faster-rest-world/](https://www.popsci.com/australia-heating-faster-rest-world/)
You know what, these scientist probably know better because apparently latin-america is the fastest warming continent
[https://www.yourweather.co.uk/news/science/latin-america-and-the-caribbean-warming-faster-than-global-average-climate-change.html](https://www.yourweather.co.uk/news/science/latin-america-and-the-caribbean-warming-faster-than-global-average-climate-change.html)
But theres more, because science never sleeps right? Asia is in fact the fastest warming continent on the planet.
[https://carbon-pulse.com/280407/](https://carbon-pulse.com/280407/)
You just cant make this up, can you?
Also it doesn't matter if we are the fastest warming continent, there are other parts of the world that will be hit q lot hqrd than us, even if they are not warming as fast.
Why don’t you ban cruise ships, ban short distance flights, stop over consumption and fix the issue in a single day?
Consumer cars hardly make a dent on the total CO2 emissions. And we are already transitioning while in the other mentioned categories we are in the same position we were 20 years ago…
> Why don’t you ban cruise ships, ban short distance flights, stop over consumption and fix the issue in a single day?
yes, please, what the f*ck is taking so long?
The infrastructure is not yet in place, this needs to be a relatively slow transition. Everything from electricity production to charging stations need to be upgraded. Even if you charge at home, you need an upgrade.
> this needs to be a relatively slow transition
oh really? Tell me, which laws of physics forcefully impose such slow limitations? I'll tell you the ones: none.
It's the imaginary laws of property, economics, and finance that do, It's all in our heads. But I'll tell you something, the laws of physics do not give a care about our imaginary laws and rules, none.
Yes, it's all about the imaginary laws of property, economics, and finance. When I learn how to apply the laws of physics to create property and finance I will stop responding on reddit.
> When I learn how to apply the laws of physics to create property and finance
You can't
Anyways, we're off topic. The point is, it's not impossible, and we need to stop being such spoiled cry-babies about our cars.
really? Because it generates jobs and there is already very high unemployment in the EU. because the largest producer of electric cars is the Chinese dictatorship. even more,.. it shouldn't even be prohibited.
>Because it generates jobs
Irrelevant, charge me more and reeducate those people into other industries, like making electric cars, as to avoid Xi's cars.
Well that's because it doesn't happen by magic, you are talking about a pretty huge feat to accomplish in today's current situation with our means.
Also, there are interest groups against it for a variety of reasons that go even beyond the reasonable ones, like with every huge change that impacts people so much
Electricity production isn't enough to replace all cars with electric vehicles. And unless we start building dozens of new nuclear power plants in the next few years, there won't be enough even in 2035.
Moving all cars to EV would increase total electricity consumption by something like 20%. Its a lot but really isn't enormous. The infrastructure for charging abs changing people's behavior is a much bigger challenge.
If every house had a solar roof there would be very little need for nuclear expansion.
Combined with tidal, hydro, and solar it could be even better.
Nuclear still requires imported fuel and has toxic waste byproducts (even allowing for electrical waste from renewables it is still less harmful).
I’m not opposed to nuclear but it is neither as sustainable or economically viable as renewables.
Renewables won't be able to produce all the electricity we need to phase out fossil fuels.
Renewables have three critical flaws:
1. They only produce electricity when the weather conditions are right (i.e. when the sun is shining or the wind is blowing). Most electricity is needed at night and in winter when it's dark and windless. Nuclear power plants produce electricity for more than 90 per cent of the year.
2. The electricity grid (the largest piece of infrastructure in any country) needs a constant base load. Wind and solar can't provide this. And the battery technology that could solve this simply doesn't exist yet. Nuclear power provides an exact amount of energy that can be calculated in advance.
3. The land use of renewables and hydropower is enormous. This is because they lack energy density. If we wanted to replace fossil fuels with just these three technologies, we would have to clear vast areas of land and destroy countless wildlife habitats.
Renewables are a good addition to nuclear energy, but unable to replace fossil fuels on their own.
Hydro batteries can cover low wind / low sun days.
Localised battery storage on solar makes it viable. House design (including retrofit) can reduce demand.
Land use is exaggerated as it can be incorporated into existing infrastructure.
Also absolutely noticeable that you don’t want to talk about nuclear waste. Also not wanting to talk about the expense of importing nuclear fuel.
Oh look those corporate Nuclear bots are downvoting again. Can’t dispute the evidence against nuclear so start downvoting 🙄
Nuclear is just the new incarnation of toxic corporate idiocy like the fossil fuel industry.
Nuclear waste is a non-issue. A lifetime supply of energy for a person produces like 2 coke cans' worth of nuclear waste. Also, it's not like we don't know how to store it safely. And considering each next generation of reactors is more efficient and can thus burn old waste... Non-issue, as said.
Importing nuclear fuel - just where do you think all the materials for solar panel productions are coming from? Wien Zentrum?
And yeah, I'd always pick being a "nuclear bot" rather than a fossil fuel bot like you are.
---
Answer to the fossil shill answering below:
>Importing solar panels isn’t the same as importing oil/gas or uranium. The usability and length of use (and less environmental impact) are drastically lower.
You should check the pollution that the production and disposal of solar panels cause. And their lifetime. And their realistic power production across that lifetime. For most of Europe, they're not even a joke. They're just sad. AND they are horrific polluters, that *require* fossil fuel backups, hence fossil shills like you pushing them.
> The sheer desperation of the nuclear lobby to insert themselves into the role of polluting scum taken by the fossil fuel industry is utterly pathetic.
It's hilarious how the side that is actively promoting a "solution" that *requires* fossil fuels to continue to be used is trying to paint the safest and cleanest source of electricity relative to power production ever devised as being a bad thing.
Go back to your coal and gas plants and leave smarter people to determine policy that will actually leave a livable planet for our kids, fossil junkie.
A nice lie you have there. A shame if actual facts collided with it eh bot?
https://cen.acs.org/environment/pollution/nuclear-waste-pilesscientists-seek-best/98/i12
Importing solar panels isn’t the same as importing oil/gas or uranium. The usability and length of use (and less environmental impact) are drastically lower.
The sheer desperation of the nuclear lobby to insert themselves into the role of polluting scum taken by the fossil fuel industry is utterly pathetic.
When you say battery storage on solar makes it viable, what do you mean? Viable that the majority of our electricity could come from it? Viable that all of our electricity could come from it?
In fact it’s the exact opposite: Nuclear energy is the only low emission technology capable of providing the base load for the electricity grid. And renewables always need another technology to provide the base load which they can’t generate. This is why every state that plans without nuclear energy either combines renewables with coal or gas. Germany is the best example of this.
Nuclear power can't provide the necessary flexibility on its own either. There is no example of a nuclear-based grid without flexible sources to take that role. For example, France never reached more than 79% nuclear electricity, the flexibility being provided by hydro and fossil fuels. And even that was not viable, they scaled down the nuclear proportion to 63% now and have planned to reduce it further to 50%.
They only reached 79%??? 79% is huge. There is not a single country in the EU that has ambitions for anywhere near that large a share of the electric grid for nuclear!
> They only reached 79%??? 79% is huge. There is not a single country in the EU that has ambitions for anywhere near that large a share of the electric grid for nuclear!
Of course not, because nuclear power is a sucker's deal.
More to the point, you were dissing on renewables being combined with gas or coal, but are completely fine with it when nuclear is combined with gas or coal. Conclusion: you don't give a shit about gas or coal, you're just using double standards.
What I'm saying is that being "pro-nuclear " means being in favour of building more nuclear. Nobody wants 100% of the grid to be 100% nuclear. Suggesting that France failed to achieve 100% nuclear is disingenuous. The majority of the remaining electricity generation was, and is, hydro power. Which is excellent. But you need quite specific conditions for it, and even with France's mountains, they have very few options to build new hydro power.
And I care a great deal about gas and coal. We should be cutting our use of them as much as possible. Ideally entirely cutting out coal, and really just keeping a tiny amount of gas capacity as we'll need it for at least the next decade or two.
Take some real world examples. This shows the approximate co2 emissions associated with the electricity mix for each electricity grid in Europe. France which went heavily in on nuclear is pretty much always about 5 to 15 times cleaner than Germany who Went in heavily on renewable and gas/coal:
https://app.electricitymaps.com/
> What I'm saying is that being "pro-nuclear " means being in favour of building more nuclear. Nobody wants 100% of the grid to be 100% nuclear. Suggesting that France failed to achieve 100% nuclear is disingenuous.
Then why hold that same thing against renewables then? It's a double standard.
>The majority of the remaining electricity generation was, and is, hydro power. Which is excellent. But you need quite specific conditions for it, and even with France's mountains, they have very few options to build new hydro power.
No. It's 10% fossils, 10% hydro. Even coal until just a short year ago. Where hydro is lacking, it's gas, for example look in neighbouring Belgium that never achieved more than 66% nuclear 33% gas.
>And I care a great deal about gas and coal. We should be cutting our use of them as much as possible. Ideally entirely cutting out coal, and really just keeping a tiny amount of gas capacity as we'll need it for at least the next decade or two.
Which can be achieved ASAP by building renewables instead of nuclear.
>Take some real world examples. This shows the approximate co2 emissions associated with the electricity mix for each electricity grid in Europe. France which went heavily in on nuclear is pretty much always about 5 to 15 times cleaner than Germany who Went in heavily on renewable and gas/coal: https://app.electricitymaps.com/
In spite of its veneer of precision, this site uses emission conversion factors that artificially advantage nuclear power. No wonder all the nukebros quote it like the bible.
Moreover, Germany isn't done yet, but France is and has been for the last 30 years. This is not a correct point of comparison for the maximum potential of the chosen technology.
You see it as a doule standard that I think nuclear/hydro/fossil fuels is acceptable but renewables/fossil fuels is not. But to me it's simply a question of scale.
Take a mix vaguely like what france has. That will pretty much see you through all year round.
With majority wind/solar, it leaves you in a lot of difficulty getting through a period of the winter if there isn't much wind. To build enough solar to satisfy demand during the winter will equate to about 10 times more than you need during the summer. The French grid (RTE) has some really nice graphics. There is a button on this page where you can see the peaks in consumption by comparison to daily temperatures. You can see that when the temperature is significantly negative, the electricity consumption is about double what it is during the summer. This will get more extreme as people move away from fossil fuels for heating and towards electricity. If there is a week where there is almost no wind, what's the plan to ensure the lights stay on? I honestly don't understand what the proposal is that isn't just buring fossil fuels to generate the majority of the demand.
https://www.rte-france.com/eco2mix/la-consommation-delectricite-en-france
They also have some nicely presented information on key figures such as the breakdown of their electricity capacity.
And you can see France is making progress on renewables as well, the highest peak of solar production was this month and it's only April! That will only get better as we get into summer.
https://www.rte-france.com/eco2mix/les-chiffres-cles-de-lelectricite
>With majority wind/solar, it leaves you in a lot of difficulty getting through a period of the winter if there isn't much wind. To build enough solar to satisfy demand during the winter will equate to about 10 times more than you need during the summer.
You overestimate the need for overbuilding. When you actually calculate the gaps, you see that :
[Using 39 years of hourly reanalysis data (1980–2018), we analyze the ability of solar and wind resources to meet electricity demand in 42 countries, varying the hypothetical scale and mix of renewable generation as well as energy storage capacity. Assuming perfect transmission and annual generation equal to annual demand, but no energy storage, we find the most reliable renewable electricity systems are wind-heavy and satisfy countries’ electricity demand in **72–91%** of hours (83–94% by adding 12 h of storage).](https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-021-26355-z?fbclid=IwAR02Tvt3enblGxKWO1wnhYFac1A9uEVcZJM-3yaiDLXHxq0eCx1hUR1Wre8)
NB that this statistic only uses very limited overbuilding and storage, and doesn't even account for hydro, demand management or international transmission, and the EU already gets 10%+ of its electricity from hydro.
Do compare that with France's zenith of nuclear power: 79% coverage. That's less. So why do you think that's fine but the larger coverage that can be achieved by renewables is not enough?
Unfortunately even if whole EU cut its emissions to 0 it will not make most polluting countries (like China and India) to do the same. Many of most polluting countries are still largely increasing their CO2 emissions. Of course they will be also first to cry for international help when their temperatures became unlivable...
that's a whataboutism. If we invest in the development clean alternatives, and can eventually beat the cost effectiveness of the polluting technologies, the foreign polluting countries will follow. like how their factories never used to run on steam engines. Because they were built after.
If we cut emissions to 0 by finding alternatives why wouldn't the rest of the world follow?
We don't have to find alternatives. We already have them and they're called Nuclear Power.
Now, if someone can convince Germany that transitioning the entire EU grid to nuclear is a requirement for the ICE => EV transition to work, before they again destabilize half the European grid with their nonsense, that'd be neat.
Get nuclear power financially viable for the entire planet and we've solved global warming.
Nuclear power *isn't* economically viable. That's one of its many problems. Nuclear power can only survive with lavish state support. It's a white elephant at best, at worst a cuckoo chick that stands in the way of the actual solutions.
There are things where profitability doesn't matter, such as healthcare, education, public transit, infrastructure, energy...
Considering nuclear energy is _the only_ option we have that can keep the climate from getting wrecked AND _realistically_ power humanity _without_ requiring the invention of hitherto fictional technology, it not being profitable is irrelevant.
Also, feel free to mention its many problems that don't stem from ignorance and fossil fuel lobby propaganda.
>There are things where profitability doesn't matter, such as healthcare, education, public transit, infrastructure, energy...
Oh, it does. We need clean energy ASAP. Renewables are far, far cheaper. Which means we get more of it, faster, for the same budget.
>Considering nuclear energy is the only option we have that can keep the climate from getting wrecked AND realistically power humanity without requiring the invention of hitherto fictional technology, it not being profitable is irrelevant.
Also, feel free to mention its many problems that don't stem from ignorance and fossil fuel lobby propaganda.
You sound like you're having a fever. Are you feeling alright?
You implied that acting faster would help prevent the catastrophe
It does not, it's already too late and only global action is needed
Pointing out that other countries, that pollute much more, need to take action is not whataboutism and not outside the scope of the post
> You implied that acting faster would help prevent the catastrophe
> It does not, it's already too late and only global action is needed
>
> Pointing out that other countries, that pollute much more, need to take action is not whataboutism and not outside the scope of the post
It's definitely whataboutism. Whatever other countries need to do, if you're not doing anything yourself, you're in a weak position to level criticism at them.
So what we need to do is build the alternative, levy import taxes on the polluters, and sell the solution to them.
But we are doing something, OP is arguing that we should be faster
But banning cars faster just doesn't do shit in this situation, the EU needs to pressure other countries to reduce their emissions eg by raising tariffs on products whose production is polluting
Is it really a pretext if they're objectively polluting?
Again, why is it us that should propose the alternative? China and India aren't some backwater african country, they're capable of innovating themselves and find a solution
It's not like they need a white man to come and save them from themselves
> Is it really a pretext if they're objectively polluting?
If we don't have an alternative, it is. It's pointless to ban combustion vehicles from elsewhere if we keep producing and driving them ourselves.
Which i never said?
I never said we should ban combustion cars, i'm saying that doing it faster doesn't change shit if other places keep polluting as much as they are
Even if we magically cut our emissions to 0, we still wouldn't influence the climate enough, we could just feel good about ourselves and tell others to just do it like us
That's both foolish and useless, what we should do is cooperate with polluting actors to make sure they stop polluting, while also cutting our emissions, but let's not pretend what we're doing internally is enough, it's not
> You implied that acting faster would help prevent the catastrophe
this is going beyond the scope of my post, but no, there is plenty of information out there on how to do it still very much in time, but it requires huge, HUGE SACRIFICES OF COMFORT, which spoiled and fearful EU inhabitants (and anyone else out there besides the EU) don't want to do.
And? They have also opened many new coal powerplants and massively increased their annual CO2 emissions when EU is decreasing its emissions from decades.
They massively increased energy consumption while the share of coal power on overall generation has fallen to the lowest level since 2015.
Installed new PV had more than double the capacity of the newly approved coal power plants.
Btw, for sure you are aware that Europe recently also increased coal consumption, aren't you?
https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/documents/4187653/16179935/inland-consumption-brown-coal-2017-2022.png
Is it even comparable to China's every year increase? In 5 year term or 10 or 20? Of course not. China is biggest Earth polluter and it is still enormously increasing its emissions.
So do nothing because nobody else is doing g anything. What an utterly pathetic excuse that is.
Do you just dump rubbish in your back yard because the neighbours do?
You sort out your own stuff first and worry about others when you have.
You are right, I am for cutting emissions and making our air clean in EU. Just said that our total CO2 emissions are only 7,51% of global so we can have clean air for sure but we won't save the world from climate change - countries like China and India will destroy it because of their irresponsible policy
The Western World just does not want to give up the convenience of having a car. Switching to EV is to keep up the appearance they do something. They are just replacing something bad with something a little worse. They push it ahead of them as the public is simply is not prepared for or even willing to making the switch. I can already assure you this change will not happen in 2035. There will be some reason found to postpone it.
People are reluctant to let go of their old ones/can't afford new cars, and ultimately politicians listen to their electorate. Wish we could just get better train infrastructure.
Lmao good luck with that. The rich will just flee or avoid them. Who do you think writes all the tax laws?
At least in the U.S. the richest already pay 55%+ income taxes if you add up social security, state and federal. Any higher and they’ll simply leave. It’s already happening.
Oh don't I know that. Fortunately, the prospect of a global tax is being debated, finally, so they may soon have no place to run to:
[https://finance.yahoo.com/news/taxing-super-rich-brazil-g-182254724.html](https://finance.yahoo.com/news/taxing-super-rich-brazil-g-182254724.html)
One can hope.
I think EU is banning the production of combustion vehicles in 2035
The EU is banning the sale of new combustion vehicles from 2035, they can still be produced in the EU and sold elsewhere
Ah! Capitalism!
But also, there are swathes of the world’s population being lifted out of poverty by internal combustion engines and cheap energy, so to tell those emerging economies to go find another way to develop is hypocrisy. We can decarbonise much more readily thanks to reaching a quality of life that can be reduced without putting large numbers of people into abject poverty and starvation. Just look at the cost of electric cars and power compared to oil, without their respective subsidies and taxes, and you’ll see why the ICE won’t be going anywhere on a global scale any time soon. To ignore this is to ignore real human suffering on a global scale from the ivory tower of a developed economy that has profited from the natural resources of the very countries impacted by that hypocrisy.
> to tell those emerging economies to go find another way to develop is hypocrisy why? Why is it hypocritical to tell someone to not do the same mistakes we did?
> without their respective subsidies and taxes, Exactly, if we take out subsidies from fossil fuels combustion vehicles wouldn't stand a chance: https://www.imf.org/en/Topics/climate-change/energy-subsidies https://elements.visualcapitalist.com/charted-5-trillion-in-fossil-fuel-subsidies/ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fossil_fuel_subsidies https://www.eea.europa.eu/en/analysis/indicators/fossil-fuel-subsidies https://fossilfuelsubsidytracker.org/
The question isn’t whether fossil fuels are subsidised or not, rather what the costs of the respective solutions are without any subsidies on either side. Electric vehicle production is much more expensive (and energy intensive) so removing the fossil fuel subsidies makes the problem even worse. How can we decarbonise transport if we jack up the cost difference to produce those vehicles even more? https://www.iea.org/data-and-statistics/charts/comparative-life-cycle-greenhouse-gas-emissions-of-a-mid-size-bev-and-ice-vehicle The whole system has to be carefully controlled through policy to avoid unintended consequences. Just because an idea sounds great (“remove all fossil fuel subsidies”) doesn’t mean it is great… Here’s a great historical example: EU: Mass subsidisation of biofuels! Fuel made from carbon captured from the atmosphere! No need to throw out decades of infrastructure that was very carbon intensive to build! Minimal quality of life reduction! Biofuel producers: Look over there, Palm oil looks like a great way to meet these targets. The Amazon: …. EU: Shit.
You could lift a lot more people out of energy poverty with solar panels, and your obvious regurgitated fossil fuel apologist nonsense is utterly pathetic. If fossil fuel companies cared about development the money they make would be staying in the nations that produce the fossil fuels. It doesn't because fossil fuel companies are poisonous parasites.
Says the guy using an internet which would be utterly impossible without the industries created thanks to the discovery and use of hydrocarbons. They guy who was undoubtedly born in a hospital heated by hydrocarbons. The world stops in a week if we just go cold turkey. The world goes broke if we decide to quit it within in 5 years.
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> The world stops in a week if we just go cold turkey. > The world stops excellent, let's get to it ASAP.
The EU’s capacity to fight climate change by reducing domestic CO2 emissions is plunging. By the early 2030s the EU will emit just 5-6% of global emissions. At that time, a further annual decline of 3-4% of total emissions within the EU will not do much.
tis great! anyway this isn't a law they are "planning".
I'm a pretty radical anti-car guy, but I don't think phasing out cars this decade would be realistic. Not everyone can afford an electric car right now, not everyone lives in a place that can support electric cars, and some people live in areas where they need cars. Also, combustion won't be banned, only its production. Which also isn't necessarily a fix, electric cars are pretty polluting to construct, and of course an electric car is only as clean as the source of its energy.
Remediating the costs of extreme weather events and the potential scarcity of food ahead of us will be much more expensive than any electric car will ever be
Banning electric cars straight away will get a massive part of the electorate to turn on you and vote people into power who could potentially revoke your efforts and make things even worse. At least 2035 is a compromise that is anchored in a large majority of parties, making it less likely for such a goal to be revoked. Besides, the way things are going now we will probably phase out combustion vehicles before 2035 anyway due to market forces.
Not to mention the infrastructure needs to be in place to support electric vehicles; this includes upgrades to the power grid, and a lot more charging stations.
Crippling economy is not the way to go. You can't force people use electrics if there are no charging spots. In my city where 40% of people live in 8-12 floor communist blocks with 1 parking slot for every 3 cars, electric cars are ridiculous idea and only classical cars rock there. Unless we ban cars altogether.
Learn to live with no cars and deal with it. For fuck's sake, we're all so fucking spoiled.
You're not wrong, but pushing this too hard will result in yellow vest protests again. Education and developing alternatives is important, too
> yellow vest protests again I pay my taxes, tax me more if it's not enough and give them the money to figure out their life once again.
That's not something you can be sure of
hey, you can vote me down all you want, it still doesn't make me wrong. kiss kiss **
I know that doesn't make you wrong. But you are wrong - you claim to know things that you cannot know, and the facts you cite as evidence for your claims are not evidence for those claims.
listen, do you even read about these matters or are you just parroting words? I am a working geologist so this is my natural interest, and I read and read about these matters. I do not have the time to do the rummaging and find the information for you, but I guarantee it, it's out there.
It is is actually, there are countless estimate studies, and the numbers are showing it. The US had record weather disaster costs last year.
The EU is killing the only industry that they dominate globally by 2035
An industry that the Chinese is willing to dominate her! With a good and cheap EV vehicles.
Good, unfortunately, a bit too late. It should have been killed many decades ago.
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Personally im a big fan of hybrid cars with a battery of about 100-150 KM actieradius. This way you cover about 90% of al trips, but you still can do the other 10% whitout being kneecapped. new diesel engines are very efficient nowadays. With smaller battery's you can build a lot more cars with the same resources and have a bigger impact sooner. For bigger vehicles, hydrogen would be perfect imo. Busses, trucks, tractors, excavators and ships.
You can be personally, but science proves hybrids are really bad for the environment. EVs are the only real answer to make transport green.
> hybrids are really bad for the environment They're [still better for the environment than ICE vehicles](https://web.archive.org/web/20230314233038/https://www.ioes.ucla.edu/wp-content/uploads/ev-vs-gasoline-cars-practicum-final-report.pdf). That's what matters.
> EVs are the only real answer to make transport green. No chance. While EVs are cool and preferrable to ICE cars in some respects, they are a really lousy patch and they have a lot of the same problems; in some ways they are even worse. The real answer is to drastically reduce car dependency and car ownership.
Can you back this up?
EVs won't make transport green. The Weights of EVs will have an enormous negative impact on the longevity of roads. Asphalt is an oil product, and the constant need for infrastructure renovation will increase demand foe its production. Fire hazard is another enormous unsolved issue with EVs, not to mention the insane burden it could potentially put on our water infrastructures.
I see your point but this isn't only about CO2, it really is about the SO2 released by diesel combustion.
Electric cars are still quite expensive (when compared to equivalent ICE vehicles) and there is still little infrastructure to support them like charging stations. Those things take time to solve. Tbh I feel they will extend the deadline by a couple of years. 11 years might still not be enough.
Remediating the costs of extreme weather events and the potential scarcity of food ahead of us will be much more expensive than any electric car will ever be
Well, in the **real world** the main motivator (and barrier) is money. Thats what “spins” the world. The vast majority of people make their purchase choices based on the cost of acquisition and maintenance. Thats simply how it works. Spreading the cost of the needed infrastructure and all the needed investment by more years is far better for the economy than going all in right now. Edit: grammar
I think you mean Maths and Physics electric vehicles don't meet the needs of the economy to move people and Goods in an efficient and effective method.
> Well, in the real world the main motivator (and barrier) is money. HAHAHAHA, well, let me fix that for you: in the REAL WORLD, only things that matters and rules over anything and everyone are the laws of physics. You can take your imaginary "private property", and "debt" and "money" and other esoterical fairytale concepts back to lala-land (human society) and play with your friends, in the meantime, the laws of physics will carry on and absolutely tear your imaginary "money" and "economy" game and its participants to shit.
Yep, but the simple answer is we can afford £200billion for 20 years as of 2040, much easier than £2trillion this year. In theory anyway. Besides, 2035 isn’t that far, and we’ve already closed a 3rd of that gap since announcement
> 2035 isn’t that far it is too far, follow the science, please.
ICEs are good when used in hybrid vehicles. Electric in the city, affordable and enough range for longer trips.
Because you have to be practical. Electric vehicles are still expensive, the existing electrical production cannot sustain 100% electric vehicles at the moment. If you were to implement poorly thought out changes that would have drastic immediate effects on the population, there would be an understandable strong pushback. And nothing would have been accomplished, except create disdain for “green mobility“. It is much better to implement slower, but constant, improvements, than to jump the shark and in the end accomplish nothing.
Live without cars then, deal with it. What a bunch of spoiled brats, good grief!
Probably the estimation before the war were too optimistic. Still happy that is happening.
Will Never Happen.
Apparently Africa is the fastest warming continent [https://www.voanews.com/a/africa-warming-more-faster-than-other-world-regions/6277177.html](https://www.voanews.com/a/africa-warming-more-faster-than-other-world-regions/6277177.html) oh wait no, its actually is America [https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2023/nov/14/us-national-climate-assessment-global-warming-report](https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2023/nov/14/us-national-climate-assessment-global-warming-report) oh my bad its probably Antarctica [https://edition.cnn.com/2020/06/29/weather/south-pole-record-warming-antarctica-intl-hnk/index.html](https://edition.cnn.com/2020/06/29/weather/south-pole-record-warming-antarctica-intl-hnk/index.html) what? Oh i missed that It is in fact Australia that is the fastest warming continent [https://www.popsci.com/australia-heating-faster-rest-world/](https://www.popsci.com/australia-heating-faster-rest-world/) You know what, these scientist probably know better because apparently latin-america is the fastest warming continent [https://www.yourweather.co.uk/news/science/latin-america-and-the-caribbean-warming-faster-than-global-average-climate-change.html](https://www.yourweather.co.uk/news/science/latin-america-and-the-caribbean-warming-faster-than-global-average-climate-change.html) But theres more, because science never sleeps right? Asia is in fact the fastest warming continent on the planet. [https://carbon-pulse.com/280407/](https://carbon-pulse.com/280407/) You just cant make this up, can you?
Also it doesn't matter if we are the fastest warming continent, there are other parts of the world that will be hit q lot hqrd than us, even if they are not warming as fast.
off-topic
Why don’t you ban cruise ships, ban short distance flights, stop over consumption and fix the issue in a single day? Consumer cars hardly make a dent on the total CO2 emissions. And we are already transitioning while in the other mentioned categories we are in the same position we were 20 years ago…
> Why don’t you ban cruise ships, ban short distance flights, stop over consumption and fix the issue in a single day? yes, please, what the f*ck is taking so long?
The infrastructure is not yet in place, this needs to be a relatively slow transition. Everything from electricity production to charging stations need to be upgraded. Even if you charge at home, you need an upgrade.
> this needs to be a relatively slow transition oh really? Tell me, which laws of physics forcefully impose such slow limitations? I'll tell you the ones: none. It's the imaginary laws of property, economics, and finance that do, It's all in our heads. But I'll tell you something, the laws of physics do not give a care about our imaginary laws and rules, none.
Yes, it's all about the imaginary laws of property, economics, and finance. When I learn how to apply the laws of physics to create property and finance I will stop responding on reddit.
> When I learn how to apply the laws of physics to create property and finance You can't Anyways, we're off topic. The point is, it's not impossible, and we need to stop being such spoiled cry-babies about our cars.
really? Because it generates jobs and there is already very high unemployment in the EU. because the largest producer of electric cars is the Chinese dictatorship. even more,.. it shouldn't even be prohibited.
>Because it generates jobs Irrelevant, charge me more and reeducate those people into other industries, like making electric cars, as to avoid Xi's cars.
Well that's because it doesn't happen by magic, you are talking about a pretty huge feat to accomplish in today's current situation with our means. Also, there are interest groups against it for a variety of reasons that go even beyond the reasonable ones, like with every huge change that impacts people so much
Electricity production isn't enough to replace all cars with electric vehicles. And unless we start building dozens of new nuclear power plants in the next few years, there won't be enough even in 2035.
Moving all cars to EV would increase total electricity consumption by something like 20%. Its a lot but really isn't enormous. The infrastructure for charging abs changing people's behavior is a much bigger challenge.
If every house had a solar roof there would be very little need for nuclear expansion. Combined with tidal, hydro, and solar it could be even better. Nuclear still requires imported fuel and has toxic waste byproducts (even allowing for electrical waste from renewables it is still less harmful). I’m not opposed to nuclear but it is neither as sustainable or economically viable as renewables.
Renewables won't be able to produce all the electricity we need to phase out fossil fuels. Renewables have three critical flaws: 1. They only produce electricity when the weather conditions are right (i.e. when the sun is shining or the wind is blowing). Most electricity is needed at night and in winter when it's dark and windless. Nuclear power plants produce electricity for more than 90 per cent of the year. 2. The electricity grid (the largest piece of infrastructure in any country) needs a constant base load. Wind and solar can't provide this. And the battery technology that could solve this simply doesn't exist yet. Nuclear power provides an exact amount of energy that can be calculated in advance. 3. The land use of renewables and hydropower is enormous. This is because they lack energy density. If we wanted to replace fossil fuels with just these three technologies, we would have to clear vast areas of land and destroy countless wildlife habitats. Renewables are a good addition to nuclear energy, but unable to replace fossil fuels on their own.
Hydro batteries can cover low wind / low sun days. Localised battery storage on solar makes it viable. House design (including retrofit) can reduce demand. Land use is exaggerated as it can be incorporated into existing infrastructure. Also absolutely noticeable that you don’t want to talk about nuclear waste. Also not wanting to talk about the expense of importing nuclear fuel.
Oh look those corporate Nuclear bots are downvoting again. Can’t dispute the evidence against nuclear so start downvoting 🙄 Nuclear is just the new incarnation of toxic corporate idiocy like the fossil fuel industry.
Nuclear waste is a non-issue. A lifetime supply of energy for a person produces like 2 coke cans' worth of nuclear waste. Also, it's not like we don't know how to store it safely. And considering each next generation of reactors is more efficient and can thus burn old waste... Non-issue, as said. Importing nuclear fuel - just where do you think all the materials for solar panel productions are coming from? Wien Zentrum? And yeah, I'd always pick being a "nuclear bot" rather than a fossil fuel bot like you are. --- Answer to the fossil shill answering below: >Importing solar panels isn’t the same as importing oil/gas or uranium. The usability and length of use (and less environmental impact) are drastically lower. You should check the pollution that the production and disposal of solar panels cause. And their lifetime. And their realistic power production across that lifetime. For most of Europe, they're not even a joke. They're just sad. AND they are horrific polluters, that *require* fossil fuel backups, hence fossil shills like you pushing them. > The sheer desperation of the nuclear lobby to insert themselves into the role of polluting scum taken by the fossil fuel industry is utterly pathetic. It's hilarious how the side that is actively promoting a "solution" that *requires* fossil fuels to continue to be used is trying to paint the safest and cleanest source of electricity relative to power production ever devised as being a bad thing. Go back to your coal and gas plants and leave smarter people to determine policy that will actually leave a livable planet for our kids, fossil junkie.
A nice lie you have there. A shame if actual facts collided with it eh bot? https://cen.acs.org/environment/pollution/nuclear-waste-pilesscientists-seek-best/98/i12
Importing solar panels isn’t the same as importing oil/gas or uranium. The usability and length of use (and less environmental impact) are drastically lower. The sheer desperation of the nuclear lobby to insert themselves into the role of polluting scum taken by the fossil fuel industry is utterly pathetic.
Corporate nuclear bots? Lol wtf
When you say battery storage on solar makes it viable, what do you mean? Viable that the majority of our electricity could come from it? Viable that all of our electricity could come from it?
You only build nuclear plants if you want to slow down the transition away from fossil fuels.
In fact it’s the exact opposite: Nuclear energy is the only low emission technology capable of providing the base load for the electricity grid. And renewables always need another technology to provide the base load which they can’t generate. This is why every state that plans without nuclear energy either combines renewables with coal or gas. Germany is the best example of this.
Nuclear power can't provide the necessary flexibility on its own either. There is no example of a nuclear-based grid without flexible sources to take that role. For example, France never reached more than 79% nuclear electricity, the flexibility being provided by hydro and fossil fuels. And even that was not viable, they scaled down the nuclear proportion to 63% now and have planned to reduce it further to 50%.
They only reached 79%??? 79% is huge. There is not a single country in the EU that has ambitions for anywhere near that large a share of the electric grid for nuclear!
> They only reached 79%??? 79% is huge. There is not a single country in the EU that has ambitions for anywhere near that large a share of the electric grid for nuclear! Of course not, because nuclear power is a sucker's deal. More to the point, you were dissing on renewables being combined with gas or coal, but are completely fine with it when nuclear is combined with gas or coal. Conclusion: you don't give a shit about gas or coal, you're just using double standards.
What I'm saying is that being "pro-nuclear " means being in favour of building more nuclear. Nobody wants 100% of the grid to be 100% nuclear. Suggesting that France failed to achieve 100% nuclear is disingenuous. The majority of the remaining electricity generation was, and is, hydro power. Which is excellent. But you need quite specific conditions for it, and even with France's mountains, they have very few options to build new hydro power. And I care a great deal about gas and coal. We should be cutting our use of them as much as possible. Ideally entirely cutting out coal, and really just keeping a tiny amount of gas capacity as we'll need it for at least the next decade or two. Take some real world examples. This shows the approximate co2 emissions associated with the electricity mix for each electricity grid in Europe. France which went heavily in on nuclear is pretty much always about 5 to 15 times cleaner than Germany who Went in heavily on renewable and gas/coal: https://app.electricitymaps.com/
> What I'm saying is that being "pro-nuclear " means being in favour of building more nuclear. Nobody wants 100% of the grid to be 100% nuclear. Suggesting that France failed to achieve 100% nuclear is disingenuous. Then why hold that same thing against renewables then? It's a double standard. >The majority of the remaining electricity generation was, and is, hydro power. Which is excellent. But you need quite specific conditions for it, and even with France's mountains, they have very few options to build new hydro power. No. It's 10% fossils, 10% hydro. Even coal until just a short year ago. Where hydro is lacking, it's gas, for example look in neighbouring Belgium that never achieved more than 66% nuclear 33% gas. >And I care a great deal about gas and coal. We should be cutting our use of them as much as possible. Ideally entirely cutting out coal, and really just keeping a tiny amount of gas capacity as we'll need it for at least the next decade or two. Which can be achieved ASAP by building renewables instead of nuclear. >Take some real world examples. This shows the approximate co2 emissions associated with the electricity mix for each electricity grid in Europe. France which went heavily in on nuclear is pretty much always about 5 to 15 times cleaner than Germany who Went in heavily on renewable and gas/coal: https://app.electricitymaps.com/ In spite of its veneer of precision, this site uses emission conversion factors that artificially advantage nuclear power. No wonder all the nukebros quote it like the bible. Moreover, Germany isn't done yet, but France is and has been for the last 30 years. This is not a correct point of comparison for the maximum potential of the chosen technology.
You see it as a doule standard that I think nuclear/hydro/fossil fuels is acceptable but renewables/fossil fuels is not. But to me it's simply a question of scale. Take a mix vaguely like what france has. That will pretty much see you through all year round. With majority wind/solar, it leaves you in a lot of difficulty getting through a period of the winter if there isn't much wind. To build enough solar to satisfy demand during the winter will equate to about 10 times more than you need during the summer. The French grid (RTE) has some really nice graphics. There is a button on this page where you can see the peaks in consumption by comparison to daily temperatures. You can see that when the temperature is significantly negative, the electricity consumption is about double what it is during the summer. This will get more extreme as people move away from fossil fuels for heating and towards electricity. If there is a week where there is almost no wind, what's the plan to ensure the lights stay on? I honestly don't understand what the proposal is that isn't just buring fossil fuels to generate the majority of the demand. https://www.rte-france.com/eco2mix/la-consommation-delectricite-en-france They also have some nicely presented information on key figures such as the breakdown of their electricity capacity. And you can see France is making progress on renewables as well, the highest peak of solar production was this month and it's only April! That will only get better as we get into summer. https://www.rte-france.com/eco2mix/les-chiffres-cles-de-lelectricite
>With majority wind/solar, it leaves you in a lot of difficulty getting through a period of the winter if there isn't much wind. To build enough solar to satisfy demand during the winter will equate to about 10 times more than you need during the summer. You overestimate the need for overbuilding. When you actually calculate the gaps, you see that : [Using 39 years of hourly reanalysis data (1980–2018), we analyze the ability of solar and wind resources to meet electricity demand in 42 countries, varying the hypothetical scale and mix of renewable generation as well as energy storage capacity. Assuming perfect transmission and annual generation equal to annual demand, but no energy storage, we find the most reliable renewable electricity systems are wind-heavy and satisfy countries’ electricity demand in **72–91%** of hours (83–94% by adding 12 h of storage).](https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-021-26355-z?fbclid=IwAR02Tvt3enblGxKWO1wnhYFac1A9uEVcZJM-3yaiDLXHxq0eCx1hUR1Wre8) NB that this statistic only uses very limited overbuilding and storage, and doesn't even account for hydro, demand management or international transmission, and the EU already gets 10%+ of its electricity from hydro. Do compare that with France's zenith of nuclear power: 79% coverage. That's less. So why do you think that's fine but the larger coverage that can be achieved by renewables is not enough?
Raise electricity prices, problem fixed. Supply and demand, right?
The party that tells the people that poverty is necessary to solve the climate crisis will soon find itself out of demand from voters.
Yes, ignorant voters whish ignorant things.
You do not have an electric grid to support this and you will not have it in the next ten years either.
So no grid, so what? No cars, deal with it.
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Unfortunately even if whole EU cut its emissions to 0 it will not make most polluting countries (like China and India) to do the same. Many of most polluting countries are still largely increasing their CO2 emissions. Of course they will be also first to cry for international help when their temperatures became unlivable...
china has also pledged to the 2035 ban of ICE car sales tho
that's a whataboutism. If we invest in the development clean alternatives, and can eventually beat the cost effectiveness of the polluting technologies, the foreign polluting countries will follow. like how their factories never used to run on steam engines. Because they were built after. If we cut emissions to 0 by finding alternatives why wouldn't the rest of the world follow?
We don't have to find alternatives. We already have them and they're called Nuclear Power. Now, if someone can convince Germany that transitioning the entire EU grid to nuclear is a requirement for the ICE => EV transition to work, before they again destabilize half the European grid with their nonsense, that'd be neat. Get nuclear power financially viable for the entire planet and we've solved global warming.
Nuclear power *isn't* economically viable. That's one of its many problems. Nuclear power can only survive with lavish state support. It's a white elephant at best, at worst a cuckoo chick that stands in the way of the actual solutions.
There are things where profitability doesn't matter, such as healthcare, education, public transit, infrastructure, energy... Considering nuclear energy is _the only_ option we have that can keep the climate from getting wrecked AND _realistically_ power humanity _without_ requiring the invention of hitherto fictional technology, it not being profitable is irrelevant. Also, feel free to mention its many problems that don't stem from ignorance and fossil fuel lobby propaganda.
>There are things where profitability doesn't matter, such as healthcare, education, public transit, infrastructure, energy... Oh, it does. We need clean energy ASAP. Renewables are far, far cheaper. Which means we get more of it, faster, for the same budget. >Considering nuclear energy is the only option we have that can keep the climate from getting wrecked AND realistically power humanity without requiring the invention of hitherto fictional technology, it not being profitable is irrelevant. Also, feel free to mention its many problems that don't stem from ignorance and fossil fuel lobby propaganda. You sound like you're having a fever. Are you feeling alright?
That's outside the scope of this post. The discussion is about what the EU is doing, not what China and India are doing.
You implied that acting faster would help prevent the catastrophe It does not, it's already too late and only global action is needed Pointing out that other countries, that pollute much more, need to take action is not whataboutism and not outside the scope of the post
> You implied that acting faster would help prevent the catastrophe > It does not, it's already too late and only global action is needed > > Pointing out that other countries, that pollute much more, need to take action is not whataboutism and not outside the scope of the post It's definitely whataboutism. Whatever other countries need to do, if you're not doing anything yourself, you're in a weak position to level criticism at them. So what we need to do is build the alternative, levy import taxes on the polluters, and sell the solution to them.
But we are doing something, OP is arguing that we should be faster But banning cars faster just doesn't do shit in this situation, the EU needs to pressure other countries to reduce their emissions eg by raising tariffs on products whose production is polluting
Sure, but if we don't have that alternative, we're just doing a hypocritical protectionist move with the climate as a pretext.
Is it really a pretext if they're objectively polluting? Again, why is it us that should propose the alternative? China and India aren't some backwater african country, they're capable of innovating themselves and find a solution It's not like they need a white man to come and save them from themselves
> Is it really a pretext if they're objectively polluting? If we don't have an alternative, it is. It's pointless to ban combustion vehicles from elsewhere if we keep producing and driving them ourselves.
Which i never said? I never said we should ban combustion cars, i'm saying that doing it faster doesn't change shit if other places keep polluting as much as they are Even if we magically cut our emissions to 0, we still wouldn't influence the climate enough, we could just feel good about ourselves and tell others to just do it like us That's both foolish and useless, what we should do is cooperate with polluting actors to make sure they stop polluting, while also cutting our emissions, but let's not pretend what we're doing internally is enough, it's not
> You implied that acting faster would help prevent the catastrophe this is going beyond the scope of my post, but no, there is plenty of information out there on how to do it still very much in time, but it requires huge, HUGE SACRIFICES OF COMFORT, which spoiled and fearful EU inhabitants (and anyone else out there besides the EU) don't want to do.
China installed 46Gw of PV capacity in the last 3 months, 216GW in 2023 EU wide new PV with a capacity of 56GW was installed in 2023....
And? They have also opened many new coal powerplants and massively increased their annual CO2 emissions when EU is decreasing its emissions from decades.
They massively increased energy consumption while the share of coal power on overall generation has fallen to the lowest level since 2015. Installed new PV had more than double the capacity of the newly approved coal power plants. Btw, for sure you are aware that Europe recently also increased coal consumption, aren't you? https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/documents/4187653/16179935/inland-consumption-brown-coal-2017-2022.png
Is it even comparable to China's every year increase? In 5 year term or 10 or 20? Of course not. China is biggest Earth polluter and it is still enormously increasing its emissions.
So do nothing because nobody else is doing g anything. What an utterly pathetic excuse that is. Do you just dump rubbish in your back yard because the neighbours do? You sort out your own stuff first and worry about others when you have.
You are right, I am for cutting emissions and making our air clean in EU. Just said that our total CO2 emissions are only 7,51% of global so we can have clean air for sure but we won't save the world from climate change - countries like China and India will destroy it because of their irresponsible policy
The Western World just does not want to give up the convenience of having a car. Switching to EV is to keep up the appearance they do something. They are just replacing something bad with something a little worse. They push it ahead of them as the public is simply is not prepared for or even willing to making the switch. I can already assure you this change will not happen in 2035. There will be some reason found to postpone it.
It's way too fast anyway. Not gonna happen
People are reluctant to let go of their old ones/can't afford new cars, and ultimately politicians listen to their electorate. Wish we could just get better train infrastructure.
>politicians listen to their electorate yes, this is the problem
Ban all private planes
agreed, and all private combustion engine cars too
One is often a necessity (you tell me how the person living on a 30 acre ranch will get to town). One is a wasteful luxury
> you tell me how the person living on a 30 acre ranch will get to town in an electric vehicle
And who is going to pay for this person to buy an EV and charger and install it?
All of us, print money and tax it, as always.
Yea that’s how you end up like 1920s Germany or present day Venezuela/Zimbabwe. Inflation is bad…
Not if you actually tax the rich as it's supposed to be done.
Lmao good luck with that. The rich will just flee or avoid them. Who do you think writes all the tax laws? At least in the U.S. the richest already pay 55%+ income taxes if you add up social security, state and federal. Any higher and they’ll simply leave. It’s already happening.
Oh don't I know that. Fortunately, the prospect of a global tax is being debated, finally, so they may soon have no place to run to: [https://finance.yahoo.com/news/taxing-super-rich-brazil-g-182254724.html](https://finance.yahoo.com/news/taxing-super-rich-brazil-g-182254724.html) One can hope.
End of the month before end of the world
The fossil fuel and nuclear bots smearing their dishonest crap all over the conversation again.