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This week, all eyes are on zero-emission trucks. It’s time for policymakers to go bold.

By Jason Mathers / Published: March 7, 2022

As leaders from government, business and tech meet this week at CERA Week, The Work Truck Show and the ATA Technology and Maintenance Council annual meeting, the growing availability of zero-emission trucks will be center stage.

The last five years have seen tremendous progress in the availability of and fleet interest in large, zero-emission vehicles. This electric truck revolution is being spurred by growing private sector investment, rapidly maturing technology and clear government leadership. As a result, these trucks are moving from the showroom floor to highways and local streets across North America.

Among the many signs of progress are:

Posted in Air Quality, Electric Vehicles / Comments are closed

After banner EV commitments at COP26, it’s time for U.S. to lead

By EDF Blogs / Published: November 18, 2021

By Jason Mathers and Peter Zalzal

The global convening of international climate leaders at COP 26 delivered transformative commitments from countries and companies around the pace of transition to zero-emission vehicles. Leading automakers such as Ford, GM and Mercedes-Benz, as well as more than two dozen countries agreed that by 2035, all new cars sold should be zero-emission. Fifteen countries also agreed that the same should be achieved for trucks and buses by 2040.

It’s great to see global commitments to these targets (which EDF has previously called for), because transportation is the primary source of climate pollution and a leading cause of premature deaths around the world. However, missing from both of these historic agreements was the United States.

Posted in Air Quality, Electric Vehicles / Comments are closed

Leadership, bold action needed to scale electric trucks and buses

By Jason Mathers / Published: July 6, 2021

A recent report from Bloomberg New Energy Finance highlights the urgent need for policymakers to prioritize truck electrification, which could have sweeping benefits for the climate, public health, and American jobs. The annual EV outlook includes (for the first time) a comparison of the zero-emission vehicle adoption path needed to achieve net-zero by 2050, as well as a business-as-usual scenario where fleet operators continued to externalize the health and climate damage from operating combustion trucks.

For large trucks and buses, the difference between these scenarios is stark. According the BNEF summary, “by 2040, zero-emission medium and heavy commercial vehicles are 95% of sales in our Net Zero Scenario, but just 30% in the ETS. This represents an ‘adoption gap’ of 65 percentage points in 2040.”

Posted in Air Quality, California, Electric Vehicles, New Jersey / Comments are closed

New bill will make it easier, cheaper to buy electric trucks and buses

By EDF Blogs / Published: April 22, 2021

By Michael Colvin and Lauren Navarro

A new bill making its way through the California Legislature has the potential to help accelerate the much-needed transition to electric vehicles.

The law, Senate Bill 372, would create state programs that help owners of medium- and heavy-duty trucks and buses pay for the costs of replacing their diesel-fueled fleets with cleaner, zero-emissions alternatives.

Medium- and heavy-duty trucks create massive amounts of air pollution. This pollution deteriorates air quality and can exacerbate serious health problems for people who suffer from asthma and other respiratory conditions. The pollution is particularly bad along shipping routes and near warehouses, many of which are located in and around low-income communities. So replacing these vehicles with cleaner, zero-polluting versions will immediately improve outcomes for these vulnerable populations.

Posted in Air Quality, California, Electric Vehicles / Comments are closed

From carbon accounting to carbon accountability: It’s time for banks to step up

By Ben Ratner / Published: March 31, 2021

The Partnership for Carbon Accounting Financials recently welcomed its 100th member, a milestone that reflects banks’ growing focus on measuring financed emissions. But while robust carbon accounting is necessary for the long term, it is no substitute for action now. To pick up the pace of Paris alignment, banks must begin targeting financed emissions in carbon-intensive sectors immediately.

Improving data and disclosure is a valid long game, with mandatory climate risk disclosure and corporate leadership playing important roles. But financial institutions already have many of the tools and much of the data points needed to ramp up action in carbon-intensive sectors.

Posted in Methane, Methane regulatons / Comments are closed

A teachable moment: Zero-emission school buses are a winning proposition

By Larissa Koehler / Published: February 25, 2021

Every pre-COVID school day, approximately 480,000 school buses carry more than 25 million children to school across the United States. Most of them run on diesel fuel and spew pollution that causes cancer, triggers asthma attacks and makes climate change worse. Indeed, of the over 40,000 school buses registered in the U.S. in 2019, only 240 were zero-emission (and only about 1% of school buses are electric). This picture will not improve without intervention — barring additional measures, only 27,000 of the projected 560,000 school buses that will be built in the next 10 years will be electric.

Luckily, that intervention is starting to arrive. Today, Senator Cortez-Masto (D-NV), Senator Murray (D-WA), Representative Cardenas (D-CA) and Representative Hayes (D-CT) introduced the Clean School Bus Act a groundbreaking piece of legislation that will provide grants for infrastructure and vehicles, with an emphasis on deploying them in communities hardest hit by health-impacting air pollution.

Posted in Air Quality, Electric Vehicles / Comments are closed