This month the Trump administration officially pulled out of the Paris Agreement on climate change The idea was that world governments could come together and set ambitious goals to hold that increase “well below” 2 degrees Celsius (with an even more ambitious stretch goal.)
That’s not happening.
A new report from the United Nations says: “There is no sign” of greenhouse gas emissions “peaking in the next few years; every year of postponed peaking means that deeper and faster cuts will be required. By 2030, emissions would need to be 25 per cent and 55 per cent lower than in 2018 to put the world on the least-cost pathway to limiting global warming to below 2 ̊C and 1.5°C respectively.”
This is Trahant Reports.
Scientists now figure that under the current structure “temperatures can be expected to rise to 3.2°C this century.
So what can be done? I’d start by rethinking transportation.
In the United States transportation, driving to and from work, to the stores, shipping goods, even flying accounts for 29 percent of all greenhouse gas emissions. Seventy percent of that number is car and truck traffic. These numbers are big enough so that even a small change by a lot of people could significantly reduce greenhouse gases.
The New York Times calculated that if people drove 10 percent less, or about 1,300 miles per person, that would cut annual CO2 emissions by 110 million metric tons. That is roughly the same number as shutting down about 28 coal-fired power plants for a year.
When we think about climate change, we don’t talk enough about transportation. This is an area where cities, tribes, and regions, could have an impact as large, if not larger, than the federal government.
But local governments are often stuck in the past.
Consider Phoenix.
I ride light rail often and in Phoenix there are security teams that sweep the trains to make sure that everyone has a ticket. Sometimes it’s frightening. And old school. But what if the paradigm is shifted? It’s clearly in our interest to have as many people as possible riding trains and not being in cars. Driving a vehicle results in 96 pounds of CO2 per person. An average light rail trip results in more than two thirds less — and a full train is a savings of 85 percent.
The easiest way to get a full train is to make public transportation free. Transit fares only recover a portion of the cost of operating a system anyway.
The Trump administration may be giving up on the Paris Agreement, but that does not mean the country can’t change. And the quickest way forward is to rethink our transportation framework.
I am Mark Trahant.
