Cycling is ten times more important than electric cars for reaching net-zero cities

[bnew]

Cycling is ten times more important than electric cars for reaching net-zero cities

Active travel can help tackle the climate crisis earlier than electric vehicles – even if you swap the car for a bike for just one trip a day.

theconversation.com

Michael Wheatley/Alamy

Published: March 29, 2021 10:59am EDT

Globally, only one in 50 new cars were fully electric in 2020, and one in 14 in the UK. Sounds impressive, but even if all new cars were electric now, it would still take 15-20 years to replace the world’s fossil fuel car fleet.

The emission savings from replacing all those internal combustion engines with zero-carbon alternatives will not feed in fast enough to make the necessary difference in the time we can spare: the next five years. Tackling the climate and air pollution crises requires curbing all motorised transport, particularly private cars, as quickly as possible. Focusing solely on electric vehicles is slowing down the race to zero emissions.

This is partly because electric cars aren’t truly zero-carbon – mining the raw materials for their batteries, manufacturing them and generating the electricity they run on produces emissions.

Transport is one of the most challenging sectors to decarbonise due to its heavy fossil fuel use and reliance on carbon-intensive infrastructure – such as roads, airports and the vehicles themselves – and the way it embeds car-dependent lifestyles. One way to reduce transport emissions relatively quickly, and potentially globally, is to swap cars for cycling, e-biking and walking – active travel, as it’s called.

Temporary bike lanes have popped up in cities around the world during the pandemic. Texturemaster/Shutterstock

Active travel is cheaper, healthier, better for the environment, and no slower on congested urban streets. So how much carbon can it save on a daily basis? And what is its role in reducing emissions from transport overall?

In new research, colleagues and I reveal that people who walk or cycle have lower carbon footprints from daily travel, including in cities where lots of people are already doing this. Despite the fact that some walking and cycling happens on top of motorised journeys instead of replacing them, more people switching to active travel would equate to lower carbon emissions from transport on a daily and trip-by-trip basis.

What a difference a trip makes​

We observed around 4,000 people living in London, Antwerp, Barcelona, Vienna, Orebro, Rome and Zurich. Over a two-year period, our participants completed 10,000 travel diary entries which served as records of all the trips they made each day, whether going to work by train, taking the kids to school by car or riding the bus into town. For each trip, we calculated the carbon footprint.

Strikingly, people who cycled on a daily basis had 84% lower carbon emissions from all their daily travel than those who didn’t.

We also found that the average person who shifted from car to bike for just one day a week cut their carbon footprint by 3.2kg of CO₂ – equivalent to the emissions from driving a car for 10km, eating a serving of lamb or chocolate, or sending 800 emails.

When we compared the life cycle of each travel mode, taking into account the carbon generated by making the vehicle, fuelling it and disposing of it, we found that emissions from cycling can be more than 30 times lower for each trip than driving a fossil fuel car, and about ten times lower than driving an electric one.

Driving an electric vehicle is only as green as the energy supply. I Wei Huang/Shutterstock

We also estimate that urban residents who switched from driving to cycling for just one trip per day reduced their carbon footprint by about half a tonne of CO₂ over the course of a year, and save the equivalent emissions of a one-way flight from London to New York. If just one in five urban residents permanently changed their travel behaviour in this way over the next few years, we estimate it would cut emissions from all car travel in Europe by about 8%.

Nearly half of the fall in daily carbon emissions during global lockdowns in 2020 came from reductions in transport emissions. The pandemic forced countries around the world to adapt to reduce the spread of the virus. In the UK, walking and cycling have been the big winners, with a 20% rise in people walking regularly, and cycling levels increasing by 9% on weekdays and 58% on weekends compared to pre-pandemic levels. This is despite cycle commuters being very likely to work from home.

Active travel has offered an alternative to cars that keeps social distancing intact. It has helped people to stay safe during the pandemic and it could help reduce emissions as confinement is eased, particularly as the high prices of some electric vehicles are likely to put many potential buyers off for now.

So the race is on. Active travel can contribute to tackling the climate emergency earlier than electric vehicles while also providing affordable, reliable, clean, healthy and congestion-busting transportation.

 

[bnew]

 

[3rdWorld]

Billions of bikes didnt stop china from polluting the worlds atmosphere..

 

[bnew]

Billions of bikes didnt stop china from polluting the worlds atmosphere..

What happened to China's 'airpocalypse'?

Air pollution levels in the Asian juggernaut have dropped faster than any other country in the world. CNA looks at how China did it.

www.channelnewsasia.com

What happened to China's 'airpocalypse'?​

Air pollution levels in the Asian juggernaut have dropped faster than any other country in the world. CNA looks at how China did it.

A person wearing a face mask stands at the Ming Dynasty City Wall Relics Park, as Beijing issues orange alert for heavy air pollution, in Beijing, China Oct 31, 2023. (File Photo: REUTERS/Tingshu Wang)

Tan Qiuyi
Olivia Siong
Louisa Tang


20 Nov 2024 02:12PM (Updated: 20 Nov 2024 02:44PM)
Bookmark

BEIJING: Blue skies are back in China’s big cities.

Levels of PM2.5 – fine particulate matter that can travel deep into the lungs and enter the blood stream – have dropped 54 per cent between 2013 and 2023.

The country’s environment ministry announced this figure in September, calling it "steady improvement" in local news reports.

Official data showed major Chinese cities are seeing good air quality about 80 per cent of the time.

Beijing experienced 90 per cent good days last year, as well as 2 per cent bad days – that is, eight days of severe air pollution, with six of them due to sandstorms.

“China set an unprecedented example for how fast a country can tackle air pollution when political will, social will and resources align," said Dr Christa Hasenkopf, director of the Clean Air Program at the University of Chicago’s Energy Policy Institute.

"It's also shown that a country can achieve cleaner air without sacrificing the growth of its economy."

HOW DID CHINA DO IT?​

China declared war on air pollution in 2013 with an action plan, now dubbed the country’s most influential environmental policy.

Air pollution was a long-standing problem for the country, and controlling it was a "herculean task", the document read.

The government cut and moved heavy industries away from big cities like Beijing.

Authorities also got buildings and households to switch to clean heating and set about electrifying road transport.

In 2017, Shenzhen in southern China became the first city in the world to electrify its entire fleet of about 17,000 public buses.

The central government is willing to pay for better air, investing about US$4.2 billion in air pollution control every year, according to a Xinhua report.

STILL EXCEEDING WHO GUIDELINES​

But is China's deadly “airpocalypse” – a phrase that has made global news headlines for years – gone for good?

"There's reason to be impatient for cleaner air in China," said Dr Hasenkopf.

A worker holds a charging cable next to electric buses at Antuoshan charging station in Shenzhen, China (File Photo: AFP/Hector Retamal)

Air pollution remains the second biggest risk factor for reduced life expectancy in the country, second only to tobacco-smoking, she added.

According to the University of Chicago's Air Quality Life Index, 99.9 per cent of China’s 1.4 billion people still live in areas where average air pollution levels exceed World Health Organization (WHO) guidelines.

Winter is peak pollution season in the country, when coal burning for heating and power generation cranks up. But bad air days can hit during other periods.

In March 2023, thick smog hit Beijing just as the capital city was holding the country's politically important “Two Sessions” parliamentary meetings. That year, PM2.5 levels saw a spike after falling for the last 10 years.

Cars move along a street in Beijing's Central Business District as the city is shrouded in smog, in China Nov 1, 2023. (File Photo: REUTERS/Tingshu Wang)

About 30 times smaller than a strand of hair, PM2.5 pollutants are particularly harmful to human health when inhaled.

They come from vehicle emissions, industrial processes, as well as natural sources such as wildfires and dust storms.

Beijing residents CNA spoke to have largely adapted to air pollution as a part of life, and air purifiers have become common among urban Chinese households.

"I used to have an air purifier that's effectively on 24/7. But these days (the air quality) is lot better," said a 38-year-old Beijing resident, who wanted to be identified as Mr Tang.

"I’m married with children, and at preschool they can't go outside when there's smog," said another resident who wanted to be known as Ms Gao.

"It seemed very bad two days ago. That's why I'm wearing a mask today," another lady who was visiting the Chinese capital from Shanghai told CNA.

A recent study by Singapore’s Nanyang Technological University found that PM2.5 pollution led to the premature deaths of 49 million people in China between 1980 and 2020.

AIR POLLUTION AND LIFE EXPECTANCY​

Dr Hasenkopf noted: “You often see air pollution cited in terms of the number of people it kills. It's millions across the world every year, but that number is so large and so difficult to connect with your own life.”

Her research team that came up with the Air Quality Life Index made that connection, converting air pollution into its impact on human life expectancy.

According to the index, people are losing as much as 3.2 years of life on average in China’s most polluted region of Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei.

“That's not just necessarily at the end of a long life," Dr Hasenkopf pointed out.

The figure also factors in lives that are cut short, "like children or babies who are even more deeply affected by air pollution than, say, adult populations," she said.

NEW ACTION PLAN​

In December last year, China released a new air quality action plan to cut PM2.5 levels by 10 per cent next year, compared with 2020.

The plan also includes cutting the proportion of heavily polluted days each year to 1 per cent or less, and reducing emissions of nitrogen oxides and volatile organic compounds by 10 per cent.

China is aiming for carbon neutrality by 2060, and wants non-fossil energy to account for at least 20 per cent of its total energy consumption by 2025.

Experts say China has made remarkable progress, but new targets are becoming harder to meet.

“There's still a long way to go,” said Professor Huang Yanzhong, senior fellow for global health at American think tank Council on Foreign Relations.

“But improving air quality, because the low hanging fruit is no longer there, will be a more uphill battle.”

 

[WIA20XX]

Billions of bikes didnt stop china from polluting the worlds atmosphere..

Yet they're the leader in EVs, E-bikes, regular bikes, windmills, solar cells....

Moreover, The West, America in particular, has been polluting since industrialization in the 1800s...

 

[bnew]

In China’s Cities, A Return to Cycling Prioritizes People and the Climate

What does the future of ‘cycling cities’ look like for China, what unique challenges do they face, and how are cities already taking action? Throughout much of the decade of the 1980s, it would not be uncommon to see thousands of cyclists, rather than cars, crowd the streets of major Chinese...

itdp.org

August 22, 2023

In China’s Cities, A Return to Cycling Prioritizes People and the Climate​

What does the future of ‘cycling cities’ look like for China, what unique challenges do they face, and how are some cities already taking action?

This article, developed with ITDP China, is the first in a three-part series highlighting the past, present, and future of urban cycling as a means for promoting sustainable and active mobility across China. Read the second piece here.

This article was authored in collaboration with ITDP team members He Kanghao and Hu Qianqian.

Throughout much of the decade of the 1980s, it would not be uncommon to see thousands of cyclists, rather than cars, crowd the streets of major Chinese cities during the rush hour commute. In many ways, the nation’s relationship with cycling as a form of urban mobility has evolved and changed in line with the cultural and political transformations of the 20th century. By the 1980s and 90s, bicycles had become an essential, daily instrument for most Chinese households. In fact, cycling was so dominant for transport and leisure in those years, the country was often recognized as the ‘Kingdom of Bicycles’ by many foreigners.

Fast-growing cities across China thus supported urban cycling as a convenient means for daily transport, leisure, and exercise, with bicycle ownership becoming a symbol of progress and status for many city dwellers. However, with emerging influence from the West, booming city populations, and rapid economic development, cycling began to decline throughout the 1990s as highways and motor vehicles gained popularity. This decade witnessed a dramatic transformation in the physical and socio-economic fabric of China’s cities as they grew in both size and population, and rapid sprawl and car ownership became closely tied to economic growth.

Cycling was a mainstay of China's streets, as seen here in Beijing, in the decade of growth in the 1980s following the Cultural Revolution.

As the country's economic and urban development surged, cycling-friendly roadways in cities like Guangzhou began giving way to car traffic and congestion.

In a 2022 report, ITDP found that building networks of protected bicycle lanes in cities can be key to reducing emissions. Learn more.

As with many U.S. cities in the middle of the century, a pattern of outward urban growth and car-centric planning took over China, accompanied by a major shift in mobility for millions of Chinese. The once-prominent bicycle gave way to private vehicles, expansive highway construction, and rising transport pollution. Now, as the impacts of fossil fuels and emissions become a global policy focus for the world’s largest economies, China’s cities have begun re-evaluating the past two decades of development strategies, with the transport sector taking the spotlight. As national proposals and goals for carbon peaking and carbon neutrality emerged in the 2010s, Chinese cities began recognizing the need to embrace more climate-friendly mobility in order to meet their emissions-reduction targets.

As a result, cycling-focused infrastructure projects and policies are emerging as an approach for cities seeking to reduce driving and associated emissions, improve livability, and create more people-centered environments. Concepts such as “low-carbon travel”, “green travel,” and “slow-traffic networks” are even mentioned in China’s 14th Five-Year Plan and in its national Peak Carbon Action Plan. Under the concept proposed by the country, provincial and municipal governments have started to establish guidelines for building better walking and cycling environments in urban areas to reshape major cities with both short- and long-term measures.

By the middle of the 1990s, urban cycling as a daily transport mode was usurped by private vehicles, rising congestion, and worsening air quality as China's cities sprawled outward.

The capital city of Beijing has launched a Planning, Guidance, and Cycling Action Plan to create a more cycling-focused city by 2035. Similarly, in 2022, a new version of the White Paper on Shanghai’s Transportation Development noted that in the next ten years, it may be possible to keep the average commuting time in the large city to less than 45 minutes by prioritizing multi-modal transport, enhancing the commuter experience, and creating streets that emphasize walking, cycling, and road safety. China has also been actively strengthening its public outreach on sustainable mobility and educating residents on the benefits of greener development and transport interventions. Every year, municipalities organize activities such as China’s Cities Without Cars Day (first designated in 2007), Green Travel Awareness Month, and Public Transport Awareness Week to promote public transport use and to encourage residents to walk and cycle more regularly.

Throughout the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, it is well-known that cycling ridership and demand boomed worldwide as people avoided crowds and public spaces. In China, the largest region for bicycling manufacturing, this pandemic shift towards cycling not only boosted economies but also helped many to rediscover the potential of bicycles as a daily mode of exercise and travel. Currently, the market for national bicycle sales in China is estimated to reach $16.5 billion USD by 2026. While still a far cry from the 670 million bicycle owners recorded in the early 1990s, the domestic population of bike owners is swiftly climbing once again, now to a reported 120 million people in 2020 based on production figures. When it comes to electric bikes (e-bikes), that number is even greater — there are an estimated 350 million (as of 2022) on China’s roads, a number that is expected to continue to rise.

In recent years, China has been working to invest in infrastructure (like this elevated cycleway in Beijing, left) and to regulate bikeshare systems (right) to promote cycling and reduce driving.

China’s dominance in bicycle manufacturing and exports continues to spur major economic growth following the pandemic, in both direct and indirect industries, and this potential is steadily becoming a component of domestic transport policies. For example, cycling’s role as a carbon-zero transport mode and economic boon is giving it precedence in China’s recent climate frameworks. While barriers certainly still exist in shifting driving behaviors and improving road safety, the concept of “people-oriented” urban development is now being steadily embraced by Chinese citizens, encouraged by local governments, and welcomed by transport advocates. With over 65% of the population living in cities (over 920 million people as of 2022), China’s decision-makers are recognizing that sustainable infrastructure and policy implementation is critical to encouraging citizens to adapt to low-carbon transport modes, with cycling as the center.

While the recent surge in urban cycling demand holds promise for China’s future, particularly after decades of car-focused development, there is still a long road ahead to make sure that is prioritized alongside public transit. To encourage a major, long-term shift in commuting behaviors and consumption, there needs to be a wholesale re-imagining of China’s urban infrastructure, investments, and policies at the municipal and national levels. This includes not just the technical and physical infrastructure, but also supportive systems that address road safety measures, street design, community engagement, and much more. Promising progress is underway — now, it is the time for rapidly growing and major cities in China to continue committing more resources towards cycling and turn the ‘Kingdom for Bicycles’ into a model for the world.

In the rest of this blog series on cycling in China, we will highlight challenges and opportunities facing the sector as well as case studies of the progress being made in three major cities — Guangzhou, Tianjin, and Yichang.

Since 2021, ITDP’s Cycling Cities campaign has been collaborating with partners around the world to bring cycling access to 25 million more people by 2025. Learn more

 

[3rdWorld]

Yet they're the leader in EVs, E-bikes, regular bikes, windmills, solar cells....

Moreover, The West, America in particular, has been polluting since industrialization in the 1800s...

India is another major polluter..

I remember being at Delhi airport in departures and we couldnt see the planes on the runway through the glass windows because the pollution fog haze mist or whatever had blanketted everything..visibility up to only 20 meters.

 

[Luke Cage]

completely unrealistic solution if you don't live and work inside a city.
Rest of the country is sprawling. People have 45 minute or longer commutes (driving) They not gonna hop on a bike and do a marathon twice a day to and from work.

 

[WIA20XX]

We also found that the average person who shifted from car to bike for just one day a week cut their carbon footprint by 3.2kg of CO₂ – equivalent to the emissions from driving a car for 10km, eating a serving of lamb or chocolate, or sending 800 emails.

1) This isn't the slam dunk comparison that they think it is.

1 serving of chocolate = 3.2 kg CO₂?

Like American folks finna drop chocolate...

2) Could this work in America's most urban city - NYC - where 55% of people don't have a car (implying that 45% do..)

I can't see it working in Queens and most of BK.

Could this work in just Manhattan?

Official vehicles, delivery vehicles (semi's), buses, pedicabs, and bikes - along with the expansion of the subway?
(and the requisite housing policy/zoning changes)

Maybe?

Amsterdam is about 900K
Manhattan is about 1.6M, about twice the population...

Maybe

 

[Cryptocurrency Scarface]

thats not a bad thing, had they not interfered in their democracy before a secular Iran wouldn't be funding and arming jihadists in african countries. they got to correct their mistakes that everyone else is paying for. it should have been done 20 or 30 years ago before drones were a huge thing.

Breh you said war in Iran wouldn’t be such a bad idea

but it would increase the carbon footprint tenfold

So you’re obviously a hypocrite

You act all high and mighty about how damaging cars are and how cycling will save the planet when you support Biden and the GOP’s devastating foreign policies.

Anyone who wants war isn’t serious about saving the planet.

 

[bnew]

Breh you said war in Iran wouldn’t be such a bad idea

but it would increase the carbon footprint tenfold

So you’re obviously a hypocrite

You act all high and mighty about how damaging cars are and how cycling will save the planet when you support Biden and the GOP’s devastating foreign policies.

Anyone who wants war isn’t serious about saving the planet.

black lives > tenfold carbon footprint

black people are dying now at the hands of jihadists funded by the Iranian regime. I'd like that to cease immediately.

you think terrorists give a damn about the carbon footprint?

 

[Mowgli]

Local economies can't feed the family so we not biking anywhere

 

[Cryptocurrency Scarface]

black lives > tenfold carbon footprint

black people are dying now at the hands of RSF funded by the UAE regime. I'd like that to cease immediately.

you think terrorists give a damn about the carbon footprint?

Fixed that for you

https://www.wsj.com/articles/a-u-s-ally-promised-to-send-aid-to-sudan-it-sent-weapons-instead-82d396f

 

[Amestafuu (Emeritus)]

only fat people have a problem with more bikes on the road

 

[Bboystyle]

If people wanna bike then im all for it. Ill gladly drive by them and smile