One of the biggest challenges of a transition to a low-carbon world is to change the way we get around. Electrifying transport is a key element of this, but it's about far more than selling electric cars and installing charging points in high-income countries. But what are the issues and questions that we need to be examining?

This deeper dive into electric mobility is the second of a short series of WRI podcasts that looks the individual subjects of our Stories To Watch project for 2022.

 

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Claudia Adriazola-Steil, Acting Director for Urban Mobility, WRI Ross Center for Sustainable Cities

“We are seeing big changes happening in the developing world: China, India, Colombia, Chile. They are electrifying, starting with their bus fleets. The Global South has a much more different way to move about. 80 to 90% of people move through mass transportation, they walk, they cycle.”

 

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Kar López, Stories To Watch Researcher and Editorial Coordinator, WRI México

“Most of the development in electrification is focused on cars. But transport involves so much more. The technologies needed for electrifying all transport is still in the development stages. Governments really have to make it a priority to develop these technologies at the speed we need them.”

 

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Ani Dasgupta, President & CEO, WRI

"We are scratching the surface of electric mobility. It’s at 1% of our fleet. How do we get to 30% of our fleet? How do we get to 90% of our fleet? So we need to accelerate it. But we also need to reduce the number of people who use cars. Many more people are coming into the middle class, in India, China, Sub-Saharan Africa, and everyone wants a car. So we have to change aspiration, which is very hard.”

 

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