12 day traffic jam in China
As of now, China has the biggest car market in the world, making 28 million cars last year to account for a third of the global total. Though banning environmentally-harmful cars will be quite challenging, China had the biggest electric vehicle car market last year, totaling 336,000 vehicles sold. Chinese-owned car company Volvo Cars is planning to make electric cars for global sale in 2019, and companies like General Motors Co., Volkswagen AG and Nissan Motor Co. have announced that they are planning to establish joint ventures with Chinese manufacturers.
Links to articles:
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/asia/china-petrol-diesel-car-ban-gasoline-production-sales-electric-cabinet-official-state-media-a7938726.html
http://www.bbc.com/news/business-41218243
9 comments:
Though it certainly is admirable that China wants to decrease the amount of toxic fumes it produces by reducing the usage of petrol and diesel vehicles, it will have barely any impact, if at all. Due to the sheer size of its population as well as the unhealthy and, simply put, “shady” practices prevalent throughout Chinese factories regardless of what they create, it will take an extremely long amount of time for this to have a significant impact on the environment. I would like to think that small steps like these taken by large companies to reduce the amount of pollution can have a trickle-down effect and influence other companies to implement such practices, but the reality is that Chinese & international companies alike that rely on Chinese products would not like to change the parts used to create products because they would lead to an upward surge in costs.
I think this is a great idea!!! Pollution is a huge problem, especially in China, and electric cars would decrease the amount of pollution. It's important to note that electric cars still create pollution (the electricity has to be produced somewhere), so it is still important to develop renewable sources of energy at the grid level. This means investment in solar technology, nuclear reactors, wind farms, and hydroelectric dams. The switch from fossil fuels will be slow, but it is extremely important that we do if we are to not end up underwater, or blown right of the face of the map by extreme weather (@ Harvey and Irma). If only our world leaders believed in climate change....
I think that the best way to enact this change is to make companies and individuals want to switch to electric cars by making them a better option financially. If the cost of owning and driving an electric car in less that the cost of petrol/diesel ones, then people will start using them by themselves. One way to do this would be to increase gas prices relative to the cost electricity, making driving in a gas-powered car less practical. This also reminds me of the Marshall's statement from McCulloch v. Maryland: "the power to tax is the power to destroy." In this case, taxing and increasing the price of gas would effectively destroy that industry.
On another note, the limited range of current electric cars reduce their viability. Other than cars made by Tesla, most electric vehicles can only drive around 100 miles on a full charge, which is pretty limiting when compared to gas-powered cars that can complete many times that number. Additionally, as of now, electric cars are less convenient as they can take many hours to charge, whereas gas-powered cars can be refueled in a matter of minutes.
I think that even though this is a step in the right direction, China still has a long way until they are able to be known as a "green" country. According to the Council of Foreign Relations, "China is the world’s largest emitter of greenhouse gases, having overtaken the United States in 2007, and was responsible for 27 percent of global emissions in 2014" (CFR). Even though America still has a lot of cars that take up a lot of gas, its still not enough to overtake China's numbers. It is because of this, the wind down to more environmentally friendly alternatives may take a while to take effect. One also needs to account for the prices for these cars. The average Chinese worker probably does not get paid nearly as much as an American. Where will they get the money to pay for these cars?
I agree with most of the comments on this comment thread. Although this is a step in the right direction, it simply is not enough. Even if there are 20% electric cars on the streets by 2025, a lot of damage would have already been done, and even then 80% of the cars are still harmful to the environment. In terms of the best solution to this problem, I agree completely with Avichal. China should follow in the foot steps of other developed countries and make electric cars financially beneficial to the owner. Although electric cars have a lot of downsides when placed side by side with fuel consuming vehicles, there is currently a lot of advancement in that area. Soon enough, electric cars should be approaching the capabilities of non-electric cars.
I believe that cutting down car production in China would alleviate some pollution issues, but manufacturers would probably argue against it. A more efficient method rather than cutting down production of petrol and diesel cars would to make a more earth-friendly one. For example, there are cars that run via solar energy and ones that run on battery (I believe) or make ones that run on fossil fuel or natural resources. It'd probably be more cost efficient and anyone who would have wanted to obtain cars in the near future would be able to. And it'd satisfy the car manufacturers, who probably care more for profit than they would ever care about pollution or the state of our Earth. In regards to the traffic, maybe an efficient way to reduce that would be limit the amount of cars a single household can hold.
At this time in our global development it it clear: climate change is real and humans are the lead cause. I think it is fabulous that china is taking steps to fight the global temperature shift. However, it may be too little too late. With China's air pollution, cutting back on car emissions will slow pollution rates, but pollution will still increase. In order to severally cut back on emissions, China will have to implement policy that will have a positive effect on the environment, such as reforestation efforts. I think it interesting to ponder if America were to implement such a policy. Would Americans fight back an electric car policy?
At this time in our global development it it clear: climate change is real and humans are the lead cause. I think it is fabulous that china is taking steps to fight the global temperature shift. However, it may be too little too late. With China's air pollution, cutting back on car emissions will slow pollution rates, but pollution will still increase. In order to severally cut back on emissions, China will have to implement policy that will have a positive effect on the environment, such as reforestation efforts. I think it interesting to ponder if America were to implement such a policy. Would Americans fight back an electric car policy?
I think this a is a great step in the right direction, but it presents other problems: the increase in number of electric cars will significantly increase demand for electricity, which the majority of is still produced by coal plants, which is more polluting than oil. China needs to find a different way of producing energy in tandem with changing the distribution of cars.
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