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.

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.

  • Victor Villas
    72·
    10 months ago

    There are many ways to make that work, and what happens is usually a combination of one or more of these factors:

    1. Living/working a short distance away from a grocer, so it’s a quick trip that can happen any day of the week
    2. Having a grocer in the commuting route such that a quick stop doesn’t really add any extra travel time to your day
    3. Shop for the next week or two of groceries instead of buying a lot of things in bulk for the month
    4. Forego big wholesale purchases like getting 3 month’s worth of toilet paper at once for big savings
    5. Having a cargo bike or at least some extra pannier/baskets to increase capacity

    Using an e-bike helps, but I wouldn’t say it’s as big of a factor as those above. I don’t have one, don’t think I will any time soon.

    I’m good with having 1, 2 and 3. I still get wholesale stuff at a discount, but I get those delivered to my place instead. The delivery fee is offset by purchasing in bulk. But for everything not wholesale, I get it sorted with a 15 minute detour on my way back from work once a week. This is all pretty easy to make it happen, but only because I live somewhere (Vancouver downtown) that has a decent urban fabric and passable cycling network.