Transportation systems will need a global overhaul to cut carbon emissions sufficiently to prevent catastrophic climate change, says an international expert on transportation.
    “Any reduction in carbon intensity is going to have to rely on a radical change in the transportation system,” said Daniel Sperling, founding director of the Institute of Transportation Studies at the University of California, Davis, where he is a professor of civil engineering and environmental science and policy.
    Although a warming global climate will allow easier access to Arctic oil, using the fossil fuel will put more carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, Sperling said in a talk at the University of Calgary, in the Institute for Sustainable Energy, Environment and Economy’s (ISEEE) Distinguished Speaker Series.
    Global transportation systems are currently 97-per-cent dependent on oil’s diverse range of fuel products for mobility, he said.
    There are more than one billion vehicles operating in the world now, which is rapidly speeding toward two billion vehicles, added Sperling, author of 11 books, including the most recent, Two Billion Cars, Driving Toward Sustainability. Most of the increase in vehicle numbers is occurring in the developing world,
    Two-thirds of the oil used in Canada and the U.S. goes to fuel transportation, while the rest of the world uses one-half of available oil for the same purpose, Sperling said. “In Los Angeles, there’s one car for every three people.”
    However, it is not lack of fossil fuels that will restrict the transportation sector in the future, but an increasing pressure and need to reduce carbon emissions, he said.
    “The Stone Age did not end for lack of stone, and the Oil Age will end long before the world runs out of oil,” Sperling said, quoting Sheikh Zaki Yamani, who served as Saudi Arabia’s oil minister three decades ago.
    Sperling likened the global transportation system to a three-legged stool, and he said society needs to address each of the ‘legs:’ 1) vehicle efficiency; 2) transforming fuels; and 3) mobility. 
    Many improvements are being made in vehicle efficiency and some progress is being made in transforming fuels to lower-carbon options, but very little is being achieved in the area of mobility, he said. 
    There is unfortunately a huge “chasm between science and policy,” because of the American attitude – reinforced by policy makers – that not having a car is somehow un-American, he said. As a result, the U.S. transportation system is a very expensive example of transportation monoculture where “sprawl is the law.”
    Improving the fuel efficiency of vehicles is one of the most beneficial actions that can be taken to combat climate change, especially since the “horsepower race” is over, Sperling said. 
    He referred to the television series of the 1980s, Magnum PI, starring Tom Selleck as the wise-cracking private investigator who roared around Hawaii in a Ferrari 308 GTS that could go from zero to 60 miles per hour in 7.3 seconds. “This was a really hot car,” said Sperling, adding that “today you buy an SUV Toyota Rav 4 that has exactly the same performance.” 
    In the future, every new model generation of vehicles with electric motors will be 20 to 25 per cent more efficient than previous models, he said. Car companies are learning how to improve the efficiency of engines and transmissions, how to use lightweight materials, and are making other improvements.
    “Forget about going to hybrid vehicles, fuel cells or anything like that. Just conventional vehicles are going to be getting quickly more efficient in the future.”
    Sperling told his Calgary audience that he bought one of the first Toyota Priuses off the manufacturing line because the vehicle’s batteries came with an eight-year warranty. But “those batteries are lasting way over 100,000 miles – far more than anyone ever anticipated.”
    The average cost of maintaining a car is about $8,500 dollars per year, he noted. Yet there are many ways to provide equal mobility at less cost and with fewer greenhouse gas emissions.
    “I must point out I’m not an anti-car guy. I believe cars have played an essential role in enhancing our lives and creating better cities . . . better lives for all of us.”
    If Calgary residents had to rely on walking or riding a bicycle year round in the city, “you’d be pretty miserable in the wintertime,” he added.
    However, global society is becoming increasingly dependent on vehicles, resulting in more carbon emissions and other negative environmental impacts, he said.
    Pre-industrial levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere were about 280 parts per million, but have now climbed to 380 ppm, he pointed out.    Most scientists say that under a business-as-usual scenario with no emission reductions, atmospheric CO2 levels would hit 750 ppm, which would have catastrophic impacts on civilization.
    Levels of 550 ppm CO2 in the atmosphere would still result in dramatic impacts, Sperling said, adding that society should be aiming for about 450 ppm.
    However, trying to achieve even 480 ppm by 2050 “represents about a 60- to 70-per-cent reduction from business-as-usual . . . reducing carbon that much in 40 years is very, very difficult.”
    To making big improvements in cutting emissions in the transportation sector, society must incorporate some of the advances made in information system technologies into mobility systems, he said.
    For example, IT could be better deployed to make public transit and shared vehicle rider-ship programs more convenient and efficient, he said. But so far, IT hasn’t made many inroads into mobility systems because of the philosophy that every person must have his or her own vehicle.
    Sperling finished his talk by quoting ironically from film-maker Woody Allen, who he called one of his favorite philosophers: “We stand at a crossroads. One path leads to despair, the other to destruction. Hopefully, we choose wisely.” EnviroLine