EVs: A First World Solution to a Global Problem
EVs In The US Will Help, But It Cannot Solve Climate Change Alone
The auto market over the course of the past decade has changed in huge ways. 10 years ago there were little to no electric vehicles on the market and the company Tesla was only known by a few. Today electric vehicles are becoming more common and Tesla is becoming a household name. Electric vehicles continue to be adopted at higher and higher levels in the US and across the world in specifically wealthier nations. This is not by chance, and in many cases not by choice either. People are becoming more environmentally conscious as climate change has become a larger part of dominant discourse all over the world today. Electric vehicles are supposed to be a way that as a society, CO2 emissions can be curbed daily easily by switching to renewable energy vehicles. The problem is that no matter how much the United States may do to promote electric vehicles if it is not adopted all over the world the goal may not be achieved to the degree necessary. We are running into a transboundary environmental problem and collective action issue as it is still proving to be incredibly difficult to drop domestic usage of fossil fuels let alone globally.
The US has made major strides domestically making changes to promote electric vehicles. This includes federal tax incentives for fully electric vehicles and significantly more fuel-efficient vehicles like plug-in hybrids. And these amounts of tax credits are not small, valued at up to 7500 dollars. This could also be in addition to state and local tax and other incentives offered. As EVs become more popular it is becoming more common to see automakers declare the end of the internal combustion engine and a full switch to electric vehicles. This is in large part due to California having an executive order and is now looking into a law that will require 35% of all new cars to be electric, and ban the sale of gas cars by 2035(Calmatters). The hope is that automakers will be forced to comply with California rules and therefore by proxy make that the standard across the entire country. The result would hopefully be a fully electric future in the coming decades.
As much as the United States is trying to fix this issue, it is not a problem that the United States can solve alone. The US does contribute 14% of the CO2 emissions and it will make a huge difference but if other countries do not act it will not stop the damage (Worldometer). China is the largest contributor in the world at 30% and if a massive country like them does not act the effort made domestically might be futile. A similar argument could also be made for a country like India which is much poorer than China and the US, so not only are CO2 emissions high but they cannot afford the mass adaptation of EVs as they are expensive premium vehicles. Conflict is likely to arise, as it has in the past if the US may pledge to curb CO2 emissions from vehicles but others countries like China and India do not. This could lead the US to reject reducing emissions in the fear of possibly slowing down economic growth and overall activity. As much as the country might want to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, they still must play the game of international politics and would be unlikely to stall economic growth and ultimately power in the name of the health of the Earth.
The US is only likely to fully adopt this model if it becomes more profitable to produce electric vehicles. This may be the fact in the coming future, but the world order will then face a new issue even if more countries pledge to adopt EVs. Electric vehicles require many rare earth metals to produce batteries, these include minerals like lithium. The adoption of EVs would explode lithium demand and would result in richer countries exploiting poorer countries for the resource just like they have for much of history. This is only one of many possible side effects that will occur from the adoption of electric vehicles. And just like in the past it will help rich countries and hurt poorer countries in significant ways. The adoption of electric vehicles is honorable and should be the necessary decision. But it could potentially cause economic growth issues along with possible disputes among nations. It would also likely perpetuate the gap between richer and poorer nations, as it is significantly easier for a wealthier nation to buy and fund infrastructure surrounding electric vehicles. This transboundary problem is a collective action issue that will be difficult to solve but the best thing now is to start locally and hope that it eventually bleeds to the rest of the world, as we have little time to waste.
https://calmatters.org/environment/2022/04/california-electric-cars-rule-zero-emissions/
https://www.worldometers.info/co2-emissions/co2-emissions-by-country/
With the problems about China or India being much poorer countries and gaining accesses to these EV's would be extremely difficult. How might we try to begin to think about overcoming this problem? If the U.S. is one of the only countries watching its emissions then what is the point of continuing production on these cars?
ReplyDeleteI really like how you took into account the different perspectives and things to keep in mind. It seems so difficult trying to solve issues of climate change because of how much collective action is needed to make a lot of substantial change. You really get into the ethics part of this topic-- yeah we might be trying to minimize and reverse some of the effects of climate change, but who is going to suffer or get affected as a result? Are there other alternatives to this? Do we offer greater protection for workers to avoid exploitation? You get into a lot of intersectionality that I thought was really interesting to see.
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