The California Air Resources Board (CARB) has recently approved a rule requiring 100 percent of new car sales in California to be zero-emission vehicles (ZEVs) by 2035. Following this rule California Governor Gavin Newsom issued the following statement.
“We can solve this climate crisis if we focus on the big, bold steps necessary to cut pollution. California now has a groundbreaking, world-leading plan to achieve 100 percent zero-emission vehicle sales by 2035. This plan’s yearly targets – 35 percent ZEV sales by 2026, 68 percent by 2030, and 100 percent by 2035 – provide our roadmap to reducing dangerous carbon emissions and moving away from fossil fuels. That’s 915 million oil barrels’ worth of emissions that won’t pollute our communities.”
Mitigating the transport sector’s polluting emissions
Greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from transportation sector account for about 27 percent of total United States’ GHG emissions, making it the largest contributor to this sector. A drastic increase in the percentage of emission from transportation sector is observed in California as about 50 percent of the state’s greenhouse gas emissions, nearly 80 percent of nitrogen oxide pollution, and 90 percent of diesel particulate matter pollution is attributed to this sector by the California Energy Commission. Environmental Defense Fund, a leading international nonprofit organization had summarized in a report published in 2021 that California could save more than 7,000 lives and save USD 194 billion, cumulatively, by 2050 in health and economic benefits if the state adopts appropriate standards that ensure all new cars, trucks and SUVs sold are zero-emitting vehicles by 2035.
Legislative support for emission reduction initiatives
The Bipartisan Infrastructure Law was announced in 2021 which aims at rebuilding the American infrastructure drastically. Amongst a number of goals the legislation will expand public transit options across every state in the country, replacing thousands of deficient transit vehicles, including buses, with clean, zero emission vehicles. The Inflation Reduction Act signed in August 2022 brings forth a law which would reduce about a gigaton (a billion metric tons) of greenhouse gas emissions in 2030 and position America to reduce climate pollution in half by 2030 and reaching net-zero emissions by no later than 2050. Rehauling the transport sector with clean energy resources is a critical goal and requires legislative support providing a strong foundation to each effort spelled out in this direction.
NEVI funding encourages EV adoption in US
The Bipartisan Infrastructure Law established a National Electric Vehicle Infrastructure Formula Program (“NEVI Formula”) in 2021 to provide funding to states to strategically deploy electric vehicle (EV) charging infrastructure and to establish an interconnected network to facilitate data collection, access, and reliability. Earlier in February 2022, The US Departments of Transportation and Energy had announced nearly USD 5 billion would be made available under the new National Electric Vehicle Infrastructure (NEVI) Formula Program to create a national electric vehicle charging network. This announcement heralded an important milestone towards making electric vehicle (EV) charging accessible to all Americans. In turn it laid a foundation to a conducive environment to enable the reduction of fossil fuels. These initiatives are being followed by several programmes to introduce a Zero Emission Vehicle environment. California continues to lead in such actions, the latest being its 2035 ZEV goal.
Geospatial technology addressing the need for EV chargers
Emerging geospatial technologies are becoming a strong support for most infrastructure related actions. Location technology and data are proven to be key differentiators in building an optimal EV strategy.
As electric vehicles are being recognized as the future choice of transport, it is necessary to ensure drivers have access to an EV charging infrastructure that is sufficient for them to be able to really benefit from the technology. Location sites for the EV charging stations will be a critical component in the overall infrastructure strengthening process and it is being increasingly recognized that the most accurate and effective method is to access quality geospatial data and then analyze it using GIS to identify the best EV charging station sites.
Various types of data such as points of interest, existing regional electricity supply systems, traffic, as well as other environmental, economic and social factors may be taken into account and can be used to locate suitable hotspots for new charging points. GIS creates spatial layers related to the criteria concerned and so can represent the criteria spatially and perform a variety of spatial analyses.
For example in case of California’s pursuit for a transport sector pollution turnaround the need to install thousands of EV chargers would be a necessary requisite for which mapping and location data are already being tapped to plan and implement efficient infrastructure laying programs. One recent development in this arena is the development of a web-based site-suitability tool for EV charging stations called Charge4All using GIS in southern California.
This program was a partnership among design consultancy firm Arup, Los Angeles Cleantech Incubator (LACI), and three leading energy utility companies. The Charge4All dashboard was created as a decision-support tool for elected officials, utility executives, and local communities—giving them color-coded maps with which to determine the most efficient—and equitable—locations for EV chargers in Southern California.
California’s ZEV goal to help in its battle with extreme heat conditions
California is currently facing extreme drought as well as forest fire situation owing to its extreme dry and hot weather conditions. The Metropolitan Water District of Southern California had limited outdoor watering to one day per week in many jurisdictions during the summer months of 2022. The goal was to reduce water usage by 35% as California reels under the impacts of three consecutive years of severe drought. California Department of Water Resources revealed that the three months between February to April in 2022 were one of the driest periods in 122 years. California continues to experience longer wildfire seasons as a direct result of climate change which has resulted in extended dryness. The continued dry conditions, with above normal temperatures increases the potential for wildland fire activity.
Economic impacts of wildfires and droughts are significant. They cause great harm including the costs of business disruption, the cost of damage to uninsured homes, the cost of ecosystem damage, and the cost of secondary health impacts — such as those caused by wildfire smoke. For instance while calculating insured losses, the 2020 wildfire season in California is estimated to have produced between USD 5 billion and USD 9 billion in destruction.
Apart from the greatly reduced rainfall, heating of the environment from GHG emissions from the transport sector is certainly accelerating the extreme hot and dry conditions in the state. So, undoubtedly the efforts to introduce electric vehicles would lend a positive direction to the overall drought mitigating initiatives in the state.
Concluding Remarks
California must confront the huge pollution source that’s zipping along its roadways: its passenger vehicles, to be at the frontline of the battle against climate change. The daily lives of many Californians still revolve around gas-powered cars, SUVs and pickup trucks — which together emit 30% of the state’s global warming pollution. As global warming intensifies and its effects scar the lives of all, electrifying California’s car culture and shifting rapidly to zero-emission vehicles, which emit no tailpipe pollution is one of the most significant steps taken towards the desired green goal.
Here’s looking forward to California becoming a ZEV state!
