Canada’s Sustainable Jobs Plan is intended to train workers for new roles in preparation for the future of a green economy. The government has presented a sustainable jobs bill that will provide the workforce needed for what is called a “just transition” to a new green economy. The country aims for a 40-45% reduction in emissions by 2030 and net zero by 2050.
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau hopes the Sustainable Jobs Plan will help attract billions of dollars in investment by creating a skilled clean energy workforce. The bill, which will become law early in 2024, will publish an action plan every five years to put in place measures to invest in the net-zero emissions economy and skills of the future. From 2025, the government plans to release a new sustainable jobs plan every five years.
This new legislation has been ongoing for over two years of consultations and conversations with provinces and territories, Indigenous Peoples, workers and unions, industry, environmental and civil society organizations and interested Canadians. Based on these conversations, the creation of the Sustainable Jobs Plan put forward ten concrete actions to advance the creation of sustainable jobs and support workers in every part of Canada. These actions include:
Establish the sustainable jobs secretariat: This will ensure federal policies and program coordination among Government departments.
Create a Sustainable Partnership Council: This council would advise the government on job creation and support workers.
Develop economic strategies through the Regional Energy and Resource Tables: These tables will work with provincial and territorial governments, Indigenous groups and other partners to identify a set of concrete actions and develop economic strategies.
Introduce a sustainable jobs stream under the Union Training and Innovation Program: This will provide workers with training, equipment and materials that meet industry standards and investments that support a low-carbon economy.
Advanced funding for skills development for sustainable jobs: This will be achieved by working with universities, colleges, union training centres and employer groups to help workers succeed in a net-zero economy.
Promote Indigenous-led solutions and a National Benefits-Sharing Framework: This will be achieved by continuously supporting Indigenous-owned clean energy projects across Canada.
Improve labour market data collection, tracking and analysis: These improvements will help the council provide advice and identify new measures and actions that must be taken.
Motivate investors and draw in industry leaders to support workers: The money will be used to support green infrastructure, clean technologies, climate action, and environmental protection.
Collaborate and lead on the global stage: Canada is committed to ensuring that their best practices and lessons learned are shared globally.
Establish legislation that ensures ongoing engagement and accountability: The overall goal is that all Canadians are involved in the decision-making process and that everyone adapts to new changes to help achieve our goals.
Canada’s Sustainable Jobs Plan will train people in jobs that are compatible with Canada’s path to a net-zero emissions and climate-resilient future. These include:
Clean energy: This includes jobs in solar, wind, hydro, and geothermal power generation, as well as energy efficiency and conservation.
Green infrastructure: This includes jobs in building and maintaining sustainable infrastructure, such as green roofs, rainwater harvesting systems, and electric vehicle charging stations.
Low-carbon transportation: This includes jobs in electric vehicle manufacturing, public transit, and active transportation (e.g., walking, biking, and rolling).
Sustainable agriculture: This includes jobs in organic farming, sustainable forestry, and aquaculture.
Recycling and waste management: This includes jobs in recycling, composting, and waste-to-energy.
Environmental monitoring and remediation: This includes jobs in monitoring air and water quality and cleaning up contaminated sites.
The Sustainable Jobs Plan will help to ensure Canada has the skilled workforce it needs to build a clean, healthy future for the country.
Think-tank Clean Energy Canada expects jobs in this sector will grow by 3.4% annually over the next decade, nearly four times faster than the Canadian average. With the commitment from the Canadian government to the Sustainable Jobs Plan, there is hope that the country can meet its environmental goals and that sustainable jobs will become the new normal across the country.
There are four major sources of renewable energy in the UK – wind, solar, hydroelectric and bioenergy. The technology used in these solutions includes photovoltaics basics, which are commonly found in solar panels.
Wind turbines convert kinetic energy into rotational energy. Technologies being used to enhance to capabilities of wind turbines include smart blades, 3D printing and improved blade design.
Materials
Packaging has been at the forefront of environmental issues for a number of years. Businesses have switched to biodegradable materials instead of plastics in the hope of reducing the landfill problem and have sought to limit the amount of packaging used on products.
But new and emerging technologies have opened the door to even more creative solutions. One example is using CAD design software to create sustainable products from materials that are recycled and from renewable sources.
Using this type of technology to design and manufacture products such as packaging and clothing also results in less waste due to the accuracy of computer-generated cuts.
IoT technology
The Internet of Things is being increasingly adopted by a wide range of industries, making their processes more efficient, connected and sustainable.
As well as helping to track ESG goals, IoT technology allows data sharing, and improved productivity and can monitor logistics in real-time. Creating a more efficient factory, office or site can also help reduce energy consumption and waste and support the optimisation of the workspace.
AI
Artificial Intelligence has the potential to transform industries and, when used creatively, could harness a variety of sustainable solutions. For example, the agricultural industry has seen huge developments which have paved the way for automated tractors and other machinery as well as robotics for crop optimisation.
AI has also enabled farmers to create optimal conditions for improved nutrients and harvesting which the natural environment might struggle to achieve.
Electric vehicles
Powered by electricity rather than fossil fuels, electric cars produce less greenhouse gases than petrol or diesel vehicles. However, to optimise sustainability, the manufacturing and running of electric vehicles should eventually be facilitated via renewable energy.
As the government invests in introducing new charging points and electric vehicles become cheaper and more efficient, an increasing number of businesses and individuals are likely to switch from conventional cars.
As newer and more advanced technologies continue to emerge, there’s no doubt that sustainable solutions will become more creative, adaptable and profitable.
Ian Todd, EVP of Automated Parking at Westfalia Technologies explains the importance of automated parking tech in developing smart cities of the future
There are currently roughly 150 smart cities under way around the globe with highly ambitious environmental and livability goals. From full fibre connectivity to prioritising minimising carbon footprints, (more than 75% of global carbon emissions and energy consumptions are from cities) key decision makers must address smart city infrastructure with a realistic, community-based approach.
Proven successful IoT technologies are in demand, and a crucial piece to that interconnectivity puzzle is automated parking. Given that more than 50% of the world’s population currently inhabit urban areas and that number is expected to rise to 66% by 2050, smart city governments, privately owned housing units, and businesses need to consider parking in their overall architectural design plans. Because vehicles themselves are becoming more interconnected and powered by alternative energies like electricity, smart cities don’t and won’t mean the end of private car ownership.
Automated parking is an innovative solution in a variety of ways. Real estate developers in urban areas must find contemporary and reliable solutions to everyday issues, like parking vehicles. Property owners, developers, and architects can obtain a sensible and cost effective solution with an advanced automated parking system (APS).
Here are some ways that automated parking will impact the future smart city:
The maximisation of urban green space
Sometimes expanding the footprint of a structure is not possible, whether it be too costly or simply geographically impossible.With an intelligently designed APS that utilises vertical storage in its designs, parking can extend up or down instead of contributing to urban creep through further development of green space. APSs enhance urban green space through their ability to park twice as many vehicles in the same amount of space as a conventional garage. This ability to park more vehicles in a dramatically smaller footprint contributes to the smart city overall goals. Considering that there are roughly four parking spots for every car in the US, consolidating those spaces, whether they are mixed-use, residential, or commercial, is essential to enhancing urban green space.
EV Charging: A must have for sustainable smart cities
Electric vehicles (EV) are the future of transportation. With major steps being taken to walk away from fossil fuels and turn reliance on clean, carbon neutral energy, parking infrastructure must include EV charging. The only difference in parking an EV in an APS versus a non-EV is that when the driver pulls into the transfer area, they need to plug the EV adapter into their vehicle and answer a few additional questions on the kiosk screen—such as estimated time of retrieval and desired charge percentage. After the vehicle is parked, the driver can monitor the charging status of their vehicle in real-time via a smartphone app. An expertly designed APS is able to charge more vehicles with less charging infrastructure thanks to the nature of cycling vehicles to be charged via automation. Offering EV charging stations is an absolute must for the future built environment of smart city infrastructure.
Reliable and consistent technology
APSs are at the forefront of integrated IoT smart cities. With the ability to integrate with other IoT systems like payment stations, automated parking is a vital piece of the smart city puzzle. For example, drivers are able to schedule the retrieval of their vehicles with a real-time countdown display on their smartphone of when their vehicle will be ready in the transfer cabin.
An expert APS partner will highly emphasise the importance of reliability and redundancy of their systems and you should look for a vendor with availability ratings greater than 99%. Additionally, the right APS partner will test their equipment and develop software solutions all in-house, providing total control and understanding of the system.
Environmental sustainability
In addition to requiring a smaller footprint, APSs are a truly sustainable parking option. In densely populated areas, both noise and air pollution are serious concerns, both of which can be addressed by an APS. In fact, emissions are decreased by 80% with an APS compared to a conventional garage thanks to the elimination of cruising for a parking space.
Conventional parking garages are one of the most likely settings for violent crime to occur. By completely eliminating public access to the garage, not only are vehicles protected from vandalism and burglaries, people are protected as well. Given that 20% of car accidents occur in parking garages annally, automated parking eliminates the issue. APSs provide positive impacts on surrounding communities through its environmental benefits and elimination of parking crime and accidents.
The future of IoT connected smart city infrastructure requires robust and reliable parking. A customised APS offers a plethora of benefits to the urban environment, all while contributing to carbon neutral goals. With the trends of increasing urban populations and the consistent reliability of privately owned vehicles, automated parking is a must-have for the smart city.
Newly established Fair Transition Unit publishes report outlining how to ensure a fair national transition to a net zero transport system.
The government needs to fine-tune its vision for improving the future of transport and should make the shift from cars to walking, cycling, and public transport more accessible if it wants to hit its net zero targets, a new report has warned.
Progressive think tank IPPR’s newly established Fair Transition Unit published a new report late last week titled Where next? A briefing on uncertainty in transport’s path to net zero, which warned there is considerable uncertainty over the future of the transport sector that is “being exacerbated by incoherent government policy”.
“Right now, we risk sleep walking towards a future where the inequalities in our transport system are entrenched rather than tackled,” said Becca Massey-Chase, IPPR principal research fellow. “Policymakers should seize the opportunity of the transition to net zero to improve people’s lives by enabling a wider shift from cars to walking, cycling and public transport.”
The IPPR urged the government to “embed a more equitable vision for the future of transport” in its net zero strategy. Specifically, it called on government to establish a national strategy for delivering net zero transport that provides direction, coordination, investment, and coherent communication to shape public behaviour, transport demand, the application of new technology, and sector activity.
The think tank outlined a number of policy recommendations that could deliver a “more desirable future of transport”, including promoting more active travel, such as cycling and walking, and placing public transport at the heart of the transport system. It added that there should also be better planning, more local amenities, jobs, and enhanced digital infrastructure to reduce the need for regular long-distance travel.
It also advised that road use by personal vehicles should be curbed, electric vehicles (EVs) should be made available to anyone who needs them, and shared mobility schemes and alternatives should be set up to reduce the need to drive. If there were less cars on the road, then more street space could be allocated to cycling, walking, and nature, the report argued. Such an approach, “would ensure the benefits of the transport transition are fairly shared”, the IPPR said.
“Decarbonisation of transport shows that for policymakers, it’s all too easy to drift towards the safe space of seeing travel behaviour and the transition as a force outside our control,” said Luke Murphy, head of the IPPR Fair Transition Unit .”We must move beyond just predicting and towards shaping demand. Good policy, shaped by public engagement, can ensure a fair transition for transport that doesn’t just cut emissions, but also boosts health, wellbeing, and nature.”
The researchers also warned that further guidance is needed to alleviate “the injustices” of the current transport system, which include higher levels of air pollution and traffic accidents for people living in poorer neighbourhoods.
It added that policymakers are often left in a position where they are forced to react to changing demand, technology, and events, rather than working towards a clear long term plan to end emissions from transport.
The Department for Transport has described its approach as “not about stopping people doing things: it’s about doing the same things differently”. However, the IPPR warned this approach would inevitably focus on people swapping fossil fuel vehicles for EVs rather than seeking to establish new approaches to transport that favour public transport, active travel, and walkable communities. The report also argued that simply relying on a switch to EVs would disproportionately benefit the wealthiest in society and fail to access the social, health, and wellbeing benefits offered by alternative approaches.
In response to the report a Department for Transport spokesperson said: “The government has a clear plan for the decarbonisation of transport. We have set an ambitious and credible pathway to reducing transport emissions that includes a focus on public transport and active travel.
“We have committed an unprecedented £2bn of funding for active travel over five years and recently published our second cycling and walking investment strategy which sets out objectives and investment to 2025.”
There were 131 billion parcels shipped worldwide in 2020 — a figure that is predicted to double in the next five years. Asia represents a huge market for global trade and logistics with the continent expected to account for 57 per cent of the growth of the global e-commerce logistics markets between 2020 and 2025.
But getting things from A to B creates an enormous carbon footprint.
Transportation was responsible for 8.26 gigatons, or about 26 per cent, of CO2 emissions globally in 2018, according to the International Energy Agency (IEA). Freight, the transport of goods, accounts for more than 7 per cent of global greenhouse gas emissions, according to the International Transport Forum.
Slashing planet-warming gases produced by transport and logistics will be instrumental in helping nations and corporates hit their climate goals.
A raft of corporate net-zero commitments has largely led to rapid efforts to drive down direct Scope 1 and Scope 2 greenhouse gas emissions. More organisations are pledging to reduce Scope 3 emissions generated upstream and downstream of the value chain and those embodied in transport and distribution.
Supply chains have become longer, more complex as logistics networks link more economic centres together and consumer preferences change leading to more regular, smaller freight shipments and rapid delivery by energy-intensive transport such as air freight.
While Europe and North America dominate historic transport emissions, much of the projected growth in emissions is in Asia, according to the World Economic Forum which reckons that highly ambitious policies could cut emissions by 70 per cent – but not to zero.
Operating in 220 countries and territories, Germany-headquartered Deutsche Post DHL Group is one of the largest logistics firms in the world. It also produced 33.3 million tonnes of carbon dioxide emissions in 2020.
The organisation has pegged its pathway to decarbonisation on reducing annual group carbon dioxide emissions to below 29 million tonnes by 2030 as it attempts to hit zero emissions by 2050. An investment of US$7.6 billion until 2030 will be funnelled into alternative aviation fuels, the expansion of electric vehicles and climate-neutral buildings, the group announced on 22 March.
“Logistics is a key contributor to the global carbon footprint. DHL occupies a big share of global logistics,” said Amrita Khadilkar, regional director, Operations Development, Digitalisation and GoGreen, APAC.
“In order to accelerate the move towards net zero carbon logistics, more work needs to be done to develop solutions within transport,” Khadilkar said. Private sector efforts alone are not enough, governments and policymakers must also buoy decarbonisation efforts.
From burning less, to burning clean
The S-curve charts the firm’s path to net zero logistics emissions.
The early climb on the solid S-curve represents carbon reduction strategies through supply chain efficiencies using existing technology that will enable the firm to burn fewer fossil fuels.
Carbon offsets are used to compensate for the hard-to-abate emissions and bridge the leap to the second dotted line S-curve—which represents the impending usage of new and currently less familiar types of technologies and approaches for carbon reduction—the final leg to net zero.
On this ‘burn clean’ pathway, the company sees the removal of carbon through sustainable fuels and alternative technologies, such as electric vehicles.
The S-curve framework – used to illustrate the typical pattern of start, rapid growth and maturity of technology diffusion as well as the corresponding efficiency improvements across an industry or economy – is one way to guide carbon reduction in logistics. This is achieved by reducing, compensating and removing. [Click to enlarge]. Image: DHL
However, there are several roadblocks to getting transport and logistics firms to burn clean fuels and move closer to net zero. Initial efforts show that firms find it challenging to navigate this road alone without meaningful collaboration.
“Most logistics firms have the know-how for reducing their carbon footprint using their existing technologies and familiar ways of working. But that will only take them so far as per the solid S-curve,” said Professor Emeritus Steven Miller, former vice provost (Research), Singapore Management University.
“To make the required progress in carbon reduction, companies need to jump to the next-generation (dotted line) S-curve enabled by new technology and new ways of working which will enable far greater opportunities for carbon footprint reduction,” he added.
Transport is still largely dependent on fossil fuels and is likely to remain so in the coming decades. Long-distance road freight (large trucks), aviation and shipping are areas from which carbon is particularly difficult to eliminate.
The potential for hydrogen as a fuel, or battery electricity to run planes, ships and large trucks is limited by the range and power required; the size and weight of batteries or hydrogen fuel tanks would be much larger and heavier than current combustion engines.
Currently, the logistics sector has low clean-technology maturity and high costs for such, such as new energy vehicles (NEVs), sustainable fuels, according to DHL. Supporting infrastructure like charging ports for EVs and access to renewable energy is currently lacking in some markets, driving up the cost of sustainable alternatives further. Meanwhile, aviation is still grappling with hitting on a viable low-carbon strategy.
“Some of the sustainable technologies and solutions in the early stages may not be commercially viable or operationally scalable,” acknowledged Khadilkar.
The IEA says that there needs to be deep cuts in fossil fuels to reach the mid-century target of limiting global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius.
Climate Action 100+, the world’s largest grouping of investors representing US$65 trillion in assets, warned in March that the aviation industry needed to take “urgent action” to align with the world’s climate goal. Its report highlighted the need for a “substantial” increase in sustainable aviation fuel between now and 2030.
Collaboration is key
In a bid to cut the reliance on fossil fuels in its air freight, DHL has set an ambitious goal of using 30 per cent sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) for all air transport by 2030.
Last month, DHL announced one of the largest SAF deals with bp and Neste which have committed to provide 800 million litres until 2026. DHL expects its strategic collaborations to save about two million tonnes of carbon dioxide emissions over the aviation fuel lifecycle – equivalent to the annual greenhouse gas emissions of about 400,000 passenger cars.
Tackling emissions created on land, DHL teamed up with Swedish firm, Volvo Trucks to introduce heavy duty electric delivery trucks for regional transport in Europe. The initiative is buoyed with funding from the country’s innovation agency, Vinnova and energy agency.
The adoption of new fuel technologies, essential to helping firms complete the journey to zero carbon emissions, requires partnering with governments to fund research and development efforts. Public investment in higher-risk programmes can also lead to the development of potentially disruptive technologies for energy applications.
“Government support can improve the rate of adoption of such technologies or solutions,” said Khadilkar. “Government incentives can also enable more research in green technologies and speed up any efforts to bring them to market.”
This would also reduce the cost. While companies like DHL and its industry peers can pilot new green technologies into freight, the cost will have to be shouldered by the consumer to some extent. Customers and companies say they want to live more sustainably but not all are willing to pay a premium to enable it.
Firms can only edge closer to net zero through trial and error. “Governments need to help through more research and development support, staging and coordinating larger scale domestic and international field trials, and by providing incentives for relevant business investments in new technology and capital, as well as in the related needs for human learning and training to work with these new technologies,” Miller said.
The adoption of sustainable alternatives has accelerated in countries where governments are offering financial support. This includes subsides and incentives through tax relief. Government subsidies have helped China become the world’s largest market for EVs. It is expected to exceed the government 2025 target and hit 20 per cent nationwide penetration this year.
“Investing or promoting green infrastructure can enable local businesses’ operations to be greener—through available and affordable renewable energy or developed local EV charging infrastructure, for example. A regulatory push such as inner city emissions regulation, or incentives like tax breaks, subsidies, are other ways we have seen help accelerate sustainability efforts,” said Kevin Jungnitsch, project manager & APAC sustainability lead, DHL Consulting APAC office.
Governments have also proven that they can help reduce emissions created by last-mile delivery.
In Singapore, a nationwide parcel delivery locker network spearheaded by the Infocomm Media Development Authority of Singapore allows e-commerce platforms and their customers collect and return online purchases using parcel lockers scattered across the city. It is expected to reduce the distance travelled for delivery purposes by 44 per cent daily and the city state’s CO2 emissions by up to 50 tonnes a year.
Waste also needs to be addressed. Out of the 1.56 million tonnes of household waste generated in Singapore in 2018, approximately one-third was packaging, according to a study by the World Wide Fund for Nature and DHL Consulting published in November. About 2000,000 e-commerce parcels are delivered daily in the city state, and this is expected to grow by about 50 per cent in the next three years.
In a bid to stem the tide of waste, a six-month pilot scheme was launched last month in Singapore to encourage shoppers to return packaging from their online purchases and encourage retailers to adopt a circular waste model. The pilot is an attempt to tackle the mountains of waste caused by the high volume of online shopping.
Navigating the decarbonisation road map
Supply chains are coming under greater scrutiny as firms and countries accelerate efforts to decarbonise. If the transport and logistics industry fails to respond effectively, it is likely to face significant and rapid regulatory tightening, and ever greater scrutiny from capital markets.
Strong public-private partnerships are needed to accelerate the necessary transition to the new generation of technology and new supporting business processes and ways of working in order to get supply chains to net zero carbon emissions, Miller added.
The private sector and government institutions could follow a simple framework to prompt deeper discussion and action surrounding the acceleration of adopting decarbonising logistics. This begins with a discovery phase where current infrastructure, resources and technologies are evaluated, sustainability challenges assessed, and key areas of focus are prioritised.
Embedding sustainability into corporate governance could help influence the decision-making that flows into the supply chain. This includes measures such as introducing mandatory sustainability requirements around reporting and transparency.
The challenge for governments will be to encourage companies to form robust decarbonisation plans with supporting incentives so that no single player is penalised for taking the harder path to sustainability.
Lastly, companies on the path to net zero need to examine each aspect of decarbonisation and identify where they can follow, share or lead on aspects of the net zero journey. While some firms will be able to distinguish themselves as sustainable leaders in some areas, they will also need to make alliances with public and private stakeholders.
But time is of the essence as capping the global temperature rise to 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels — a target key to avoiding the worst climate impacts — is slipping further out of reach.
“Climate promises and plans must be turned into reality and action now,” said Antonio Guterres, secretary-general of the United Nations, following a clarion call by hundreds of scientists last month to take action against climate change. “It is time to stop burning our planet, and start investing in the abundant renewable energy all around us.”
When it comes to sales of electric cars, Norway is in a league of its own. In September, battery-powered electric vehicles accounted for 77.5 percent of all new cars sold. That figure makes Norway a world leader by a long way—leapfrogging over the UK, where 15 percent of new car sales were electric as of October, and the US, where that number is just 2.6 percent.
Norway’s electric dream has been credited to a series of tax breaks and other financial carrots that mean brands like Tesla can compete on price with combustion engines. But these incentives—and their success—have created a unique predicament: Norway is running out of dirty cars to tax.
It’s quite a big problem. The previous government—a center-right coalition that was replaced by a center-left minority government in October—estimated that the popularity of EVs was creating a 19.2 billion Norwegian krone ($2.32 billion) hole in the country’s annual revenue. While EVs might be great news for the environment, their rapid success in Norway is now forcing some serious fiscal consternation.
The road to this point has been long—and offers lessons to other countries racing to ditch gas-guzzling combustion engines. In Norway, the most progressive electric vehicle policies in the world started with a pop group, an environmentalist, and a small red Fiat Panda. It was 1988 when activist Frederic Hauge, along with fellow green campaigners from the band A-ha, traveled to the Swiss city of Bern, where they found the red Fiat. A previous owner had converted the car to run off a lead battery, and the group planned to use the vehicle to persuade the Norwegian government to encourage electric vehicle uptake.
The Fiat became the centerpiece of a nine-year campaign in which Hauge and members of A-ha drove the car on Norway’s toll roads without paying. The fines racked up, and when they remained unpaid, the vehicle would be impounded and sold at auction, where Hauge would buy it back and repeat the cycle of toll dodging. A-ha’s celebrity members added glitz to the crusade against toll fees for EVs and Hauge—who has led an environmental group called Bellona since 1986—courted press attention to demand incentives for electric cars. “By being a positive vigilante, he made the media and also the politicians aware of the electric car,” says Øyvind Solberg Thorsen, director of Norway’s Road Traffic Information Council, which publishes statistics about the country’s roads and vehicles.
Eventually, in the late 1990s and early 2000s, the incentives the group campaigned for started to materialize, handing EVs a superior status on Norway’s roads. Rules were introduced that exempted EVs from all toll charges and parking fees and allowed them to skip traffic by using bus lanes. More meaningfully, purchases of new EVs were exempted from hefty taxes—including VAT and purchase tax—meaning a new Volkswagen e-Golf cost €790 ($893) less than a VW Golf with a combustion engine.
The problem was that people responded to the policy so well that it eradicated an important source of income for the government, says Anette Berve, spokesperson for the Norwegian Automobile Federation, a group representing car owners. “So this is a clash of two different goals.”
In an attempt to claw back lost income, officials are stripping electric cars of special status, sparking fierce debate and concern that the country could jeopardize its goal of selling no new cars with combustion engines by 2025. The toll charge exemption was first to go in 2017. Now, Norway’s center-left coalition government is considering removing a much broader list of incentives as part of ongoing budget negotiations.
There is widespread uncertainty about which taxes will be reintroduced. But the country’s car associations and environmental groups believe the four most likely to make a comeback are taxes for plug-in hybrids, a tax for second-hand EV sales, a tax for “luxury EVs” that cost more than 600,000 Norwegian krone ($68,650), and the resurrection of an annual ownership tax for EVs.
Labor Party MP Frode Jacobsen would not comment in detail on the ongoing budget discussions, but he confirmed that current proposals include an increase in taxes for some plug-in hybrids. The tax for “luxury EVs” will not be included in next year’s budget, he added, although he did not say it had been ruled out for following years.
In another country, it would be surprising for a left-wing government to support such policies. But Lasse Fridstrøm, senior research economist at Oslo’s Institute of Transport Economics, a research institution, says there is a sense across the political spectrum that it’s time to tax EVs now that they are no longer a novelty. “The new Labor government has just kept the proposal made by the former right-wing or Conservative government,” he adds. “So yes, there is consensus. But the environmentalists, of course, are not happy.”
Norway’s environmentalists say they are not against the idea of taxing EVs so long as taxes for fossil fuel cars stay high, too. But there is concern about the wrong taxes coming too soon. “This could cause major setbacks,” says Hauge. “Reintroducing VAT for cars above 600,000 krone seems like a strange thing to do because those are the cars that are useful” in rural areas where people spend more time on the road—and need to drive EVs over long distances, he says.
Berve is also worried about timing. She believes a tax on used electric car sales would undermine the market before it’s had a chance to develop, while a tax on hybrids would disadvantage drivers living in the north of the country who don’t have access to the extensive charging infrastructure that exists in the south. She echoes the Norwegian consensus that hybrids are a “transitional technology” that will eventually stand in the way of full electrification. “However it is a transitional technology that we believe is still needed because [the EV market is] still not completely mature,” she adds. Case in point: EVs still only make up 15 percent of Norway’s entire vehicle population, according to the Road Traffic Information Council. It’s a substantial number by global standards, but there’s still a long way to go.
Unni Berge of the Norwegian Electric Vehicle Association, a consumer group that represents EV drivers, says it’s not existing EV drivers who will be threatened by the withdrawal of incentives—but rather the people who haven’t yet joined their ranks. “We are not fighting for our members but fighting for new people to become EV drivers,” she says, adding that the group’s main goal was to make sure VAT and purchase tax exemptions stayed in place.
As well as facing pressure to maintain high levels of EV ownership among future generations of drivers, the government must also decide what happens after a country fills its roads with electric vehicles. Some believe the focus should shift to eradicating dirty commercial vehicles—from smaller vans to hulking trucks and even diesel-powered ships. But others are campaigning for a future where the emphasis shifts away from cars and focuses on buses, trains, and trams.
Halvard Raavand of Greenpeace Norway stresses that although EVs don’t release emissions as they drive around, they still have an environmental impact. More cars justify the development of bigger roads, he says. They demand energy during production and, depending on where they are charged, when they’re plugged in.
A country that pumps more oil per capita than Saudi Arabia or Russia seems an unlikely place for the post-car era to unfold. References to Norway’s vast oil exports—which make up more than one-sixth of the country’s GDP and more than a third of total exports—are also notably absent from the debate about travel inside the country. “We need to keep on electrifying,” says Raavand. “But at the same time, we also need to have in mind that we need to improve public transport and make sure we keep an emphasis on improving the railway infrastructure instead of just building new highways.”
A speedy nationwide transition to electric vehicles powered by renewable energy would save more than 100,000 American lives and $1.2tn in public health costs over the next three decades, according to a new report.
Analysis by the American Lung Association highlights the public health damage caused by the world’s dependence on dirty fossil fuels, and provides a glimpse into a greener, healthier future – should political leaders decide to act.
According to the report, swapping gas vehicles for zero-emission new cars and trucks in the US would lead to 110,000 fewer deaths, 2.8m fewer asthma attacks and avoid 13.4m sick days by 2050.
The shift would lead to a 92% fall in greenhouse gases by 2050, generating $1.7tn in climate benefits by protecting ecosystems, agriculture, infrastructure from rising sea levels and catastrophic weather events including drought and floods.
Overall, communities of color and low-income neighborhoods would reap the biggest benefits from zero-emission technologies as they currently suffer disproportionately from air pollution and climate disasters, the study says.
The calculations are based on transitioning to 100% electric cars sales by 2035 and 100% electric trucks by 2040, as well as ditching dirty fossil fuels for 100% renewable energy sources such as solar, wind, hydroelectric and nuclear by 2035.
However, given political polarization in the US and a lack of political urgency, it seems highly unlikely that oil and gas companies will stop drilling or that American car dealers will be selling only electric cars by 2035.
Joe Biden’s Build Back Better (BBB) legislation, which includes historic funds for climate initiatives, has failed to move through the Senate due to stonewalling by the Republicans and the conservative Democrat Joe Manchin, the fossil-fuel friendly senator from West Virginia.
But the ALA report details the widespread health benefits that could be achieved if political leaders prioritized climate action over corporate profits.
“The current rising gas and energy prices are a symptom of our addiction to fossil fuels. But outside the economic pain, there’s significant public health pain caused by our addiction to fossil fuels. Transitioning to zero-emission technologies and energy depends on strong political leadership and investments, in order to get the potential health benefits off the page and into the real world,” said Will Barrett, author of Zeroing in on Healthy Air.
The scientific evidence is unequivocal. Any further delay in concerted global action to tackle the climate crisis will miss a rapidly closing window to secure a livable future, according to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).
In the US, transportation and energy are the biggest contributors to greenhouse gases and toxic air.
At least four in 10 Americans – more than 135 million people – live in communities affected by unhealthy levels of air pollution which increase the risk of asthma attacks, strokes, lung cancer, heart attacks, impaired cognitive functioning, premature births and premature death.
The greatest direct health risks are faced by those living close to highways, ports, rail yards, refineries, drilling sites, pipelines and power plants – who are disproportionately communities of color and low-income households. These health burdens are due to decades of inequitable land use policies and systemic racism.
According to the ALA, a shift to zero-emission technologies compared with business as usual would lead to a 78% reduction in Volatile Organic Compounds (VOCs) – which can cause difficulty breathing, nausea, damage to the central nervous system and cancer. Nitrogen oxides (NOx), which are associated with increased ER visits and hospitalizations with asthma, could fall by 92%. (NOx and VOCs are building blocks for ozone – or smog.)
Fine particle (PM2.5) pollution, which elevates the risk of heart disease, lung cancer and asthma, would drop 61% by 2050.
Every state stands to benefit, with more than half gaining at least $10bn in cumulative public health savings from a range of avoided health impacts like premature deaths, asthma emergencies and sick days. The country’s two most populated states – California and Texas – could save $100bn, while six others – Pennsylvania, Florida, Ohio, New York, Illinois and Michigan – stand to save at least $50bn by 2050. (Hawaii and Alaska were not included.)
The hundred US counties, accounting for about 3% in total, with the highest proportion of people of color could experience about 13% of the cumulative health benefits of the green transport transition.
The impacts of doing nothing are very real.
As a child, Rohan Arora from the Washington DC area would rush to fetch his asthmatic father’s inhaler as he coughed and wheezed, triggered by the air pollution on his journey home from work. “It was almost every day, a hazard of living in a city, and sometimes he needed to go to the hospital. Transitioning to zero emissions and clean renewable energy is urgent,” said Arora, 21.
Heavy-duty vehicles like cargo trucks account for just 6% of the national on-road fleet, but generate 31% of the total greenhouse gases in the transport sector. In short, cars produce more harmful planet-heating gases and air pollutants because there are so many of them on the road, but trucks are by far the more toxic.
BBB legislation earmarks $555bn to tackle the energy and transport sectors through a variety of grants, tax incentives and other policies to boost jobs and technologies, as well as major investments in sustainable vehicles and public transit services.
“Zero-emission transportation is a win-win for public health,” said Harold Wimmer, ALA’s president and CEO.
Panasonic will begin using copper from recycled batteries supplied by Redwood Materials to manufacture new lithium-ion batteries at its factory in Nevada later this year. According to TechCrunch, the first recycled material from Redwood will be copper foil, a vital component of the anode side of a battery cell. The anode is typically made of copper foil coated with graphite. Redwood will begin producing the copper foil in the first half of 2022 and Panasonic will start using it to make new lithium-ion cells by the end of the year.
Last September, Redwood Materials announced plans to produce critical battery materials in the United States. It is building a $2 billion factory that will produce cathodes and anode foils with a projected annual volume of 100 gigawatt-hours worth of materials by 2025. That’s enough batteries made from recycled materials to power 1,000,000 electric cars.
“Our work together to establish a domestic circular supply chain for batteries is an important step in realizing the full opportunity that EVs have to shape a much more sustainable world,” said Allan Swan, president of Panasonic Energy of North America during last September’s presentation.
The announcement marks Panasonic’s push to use more recycled materials, which in turn helps it reduce the amount of newly mined raw materials it must rely on. It also shows how Redwood continues to grow its business.
Image courtesy of Redwood Materials
Redwood Materials was founded by former Tesla CTO JB Straubel in 2017 with the mission of creating a circular supply chain. Have you ever heard of a similar effort to take old infernal combustion engines, melting them down, and using recycled iron, steel, and aluminum to make new engine blocks, camshafts, crankshafts, pistons, cylinders, and connecting rods? No, you bet your sweet bippy you haven’t.
Redwood Materials recycles scrap from battery cell production as well as batteries from cellphones, laptop computers, power tools, power banks, scooters, and electric bicycles. It extracts materials like cobalt, nickel, and lithium, which it supplies back to Panasonic and other customers to make new cells. Redwood says it is also working with Amazon and AESC Envision in Tennessee. The objective is to create a closed loop system that will ultimately help reduce the cost of batteries and offset the need for mining.
Anti-EV advocates like to scream at the top of their lungs that making batteries for electric vehicles will create lots of pollution, conveniently ignoring the massive pollution caused for the past 100+ years by the fossil fuel industry. Hopefully, news of successful battery recycling operations like Redwood Materials and Li-Cycle will stop their constant yapping.
Stanford researchers are working on ways to inject new life into the lithium used in today’s batteries. The truth of the matter is that electric cars are sparking a whole new interest in a circular economy, something that was never possible when gasoline and diesel engines ruled the roads. That is excellent news for any humans who think it would be nice to keep the Earth habitable for future generations.
Scientists astounded by performance of sustainable batteries with far-reaching implications for electric vehicles and devices.
Researchers at Bristol have developed high-performance sodium and potassium ion batteries using sustainably sourced cellulose.
Scientists at the Bristol Composites Institute have developed a novel controllable unidirectional ice-templating strategy which can tailor the electrochemical performances of next-generation post-lithium-ion batteries with sustainability and large-scale availability. The paper is published in the journal Advanced Functional Materials.
There is a rapidly increasing demand for sustainable, ethical and low-cost energy-storage. This is due in part to the drive towards developing battery-powered transport systems — mostly replacing petrol and diesel-based engines with electric vehicles — but also for hand-held devices such as mobile phones. Currently these technologies largely rely on lithium-ion batteries.
Batteries have two electrodes and a separator, with what is called an electrolyte between them which carries the charge. There are several problems associated with using lithium for these batteries, including build-up of the metal inside the devices which can lead to short circuits and overheating.
Alternatives to lithium, such as sodium and potassium batteries have not historically performed as well in terms of their rate performance and the ability to use them lots of times. This inferior performance is due to the larger sizes of sodium and potassium ions, and their ability to move through the porous carbon electrodes in the batteries.
Another issue associated with these batteries is they cannot be easily disposed of at end-of-life, as they use materials that are not sustainable. The cost of the materials is also a factor and there is a need to provide cheaper sources of stored energy.
Additionally, lithium is mined in countries such as Chile, Bolivia and Argentina. This mining is very destructive and there are poor human rights records associated with it.
Work at the University of Bristol in the Bristol Composites Institute, published in Advanced Functional Materials, and in collaboration with Imperial College, has developed some new carbon electrode materials based on an ice-templating system. These materials are called aerogels, where cellulose nanocrystals (a nano-sized form of cellulose) are formed into a porous structure using ice crystals that are grown and then sublimated. This leaves large channels within the structure that can carry the large sodium and potassium ions.
The performance of these new sodium and potassium ion batteries has been shown to outperform many other comparable systems, and it uses a sustainably sourced material — cellulose.
Corresponding author, Steve Eichhorn, Professor of Materials Science and Engineering at the University of Bristol and a world-leader in cellulose-based technologies, said: “We were astounded with the performance of these new batteries. There is great potential to develop these further and to produce larger scaled devices with the technology.”
Jing Wang, lead author and a PhD student in the Bristol Composites Institute, said: “We proposed a novel controllable ice-templating strategy to fabricate low-cost cellulose nanocrystals/polyethylene oxide-derived carbon aerogels with hierarchically tailored and vertically-aligned channels as electrode materials, which can be utilized to well-tuning the rate capability and cycling stability of sodium and potassium-ion batteries.
“Benefiting from the renewability of the precursor and scalability at relatively low cost in the environmentally benign synthesis process, this work could offer an appealing route to promote large-scale applications of sustainable electric vehicles and large-scale energy storage grids in the near future.”
Professor Eichhorn said: “In light of these findings, we now hope to collaborate with industries to develop this strategy on an industrial scale and to explore whether this unique technology can be easily extended to a variety of other energy storage systems such as zinc, calcium, aluminium and magnesium-ion batteries, thus demonstrating its universal potential in next-generation energy storage systems.”
Paper: “Ice-Templated, Sustainable Carbon Aerogels with Hierarchically Tailored Channels for Sodium- and Potassium-Ion Batteries,” by Wang, J; Xu, Z; Eloi, J; Titirici, M; & Eichhorn, S; in Advanced Functional Materials.
Matchbox is launching a series of toy cars based on real-life electric vehicles and making some more sustainable.
The first model will be a mini version of the Tesla Roadster and will be followed by other brands along with scaled-down charging stations.
The toymaker wants to raise awareness among children of the environmental impact of motoring.
Other firms, including Lego, are also bringing out more sustainable toys.
Other Matchbox cars being launched will be based on electric and hybrid vehicles made by Nissan, Toyota and BMW. The Tesla Roadster will be the first die-cast model made from 99% recycled materials and will go on sale next year.
The toy car is made from recycled zinc and plastic with just 1% from non-recycled stainless steel. It will come in zero-plastic packaging made from paper and wood fibre.
The aim of the sets is to raise “environmental consciousness” among children, and “empower the next generation of Matchbox fans to help steer us towards a sustainable future,” Roberto Stanichi, Global Head of Vehicles at Mattel, told the BBC.
“Since the inception of the modern-day die-cast car nearly 70 years ago, Matchbox has been using design and innovation to connect kids with the real world around them through play,” he added.
UK-based Matchbox, which is owned by US toymaker Mattel, was created in 1953 and sells more than 40 million die-cast vehicles each year.
Mattel, which also owns the Hot Wheels brand, plans to use 100% recycled, recyclable or bio-based plastic materials in the manufacturing of all its products and packaging by 2030.
GETTY IMAGES
Green bricks
Lego has said it will start replacing plastic packaging with paper bags this year as the toy brick maker aims to become more sustainable.
The Danish company said it had been prompted by letters from children asking it to remove the single-use plastic bags.
Lego will also be investing up to $400m (£310m) over three years to improve its sustainability efforts.
Lego bricks themselves are made of plastic, although the company is exploring alternative materials.
Waitrose has said it will no longer sell children’s magazines with plastic disposable toys to help tackle pollution.
The retailer said the free plastic toys have a short lifespan and cannot easily be recycled.
This comes amid calls from some of the children they are aimed at to stop giving away free plastic toys.
