Electric vehicles alone won’t be enough to hit climate goals, research shows
An electric vehicle revolution is unlikely to be enough to cut Australia’s emissions in line with its climate change goals, according to new research that suggests more public transport travel and rail freight are needed to rein in pollution.
Transport produces one-fifth of Australia’s carbon emissions, and the government projects it will grow over the next decade to become the country’s highest emitting sector.
Chinese-made electric vehicles imported to Port Kembla, NSW, in September last year. EVs and hybrids have grown to almost 10 per cent of the new car market.Credit: Bloomberg
Cars, vans and utes account for 61 per cent of those greenhouse gasses, which are expected to start falling towards the end of this decade as electric vehicles gradually replace conventional petrol vehicles.
But new modelling by Monash University’s Climateworks Centre has found that even with a faster-than-expected uptake of EVs, a failure to also change how people and goods travel will mean transport emissions overshoot the reductions necessary for Australia to meet the Paris Agreement goal of limiting global warming to 1.5 degrees.
“To date, we’ve put all our eggs in that EV basket,” said Climateworks’ transport program lead, Helen Rowe. “Australia will struggle to reach [its climate goals] if we don’t diversify the solutions.”
EV sales are taking off in Australia after lagging those in comparable countries for many years. Almost 10 per cent of new cars sold in the first quarter of 2024 were battery electric or plug-in hybrid vehicles, an increase from 3 per cent just two year earlier, according to the Australian Automobile Association.
State and federal targets, on average, are aiming for EVs to make up 46 per cent of new vehicle sales by 2030.
The Climateworks report, to be published on Tuesday, shows that zero emissions vehicles (or ZEVs, which include hydrogen-powered trucks) would need to hit 72 per cent of sales by 2030 to keep transport sector emissions between 2025 and 2050 at a level compatible with 1.5 degrees of global warming.
A more likely but still aggressive “moderated” ZEV uptake (56 per cent of sales by 2030) and no other action would mean emissions overshoot the 1.5 degree benchmark by 21 per cent.
However, moderated ZEV uptake combined with efforts to shift trips away from private vehicles and avoid unnecessary travel would mean an overrun of only 4 per cent. A rapid ZEV uptake plus “avoid and shift” solutions would bring emissions 12 per cent below the benchmark.
“Avoid and shift” solutions would involve moving 35 per cent of car trips onto public transport and active transport (walking, cycling and scooting), and train travel replacing about 7 per cent of domestic aviation.
Governments would also need to reduce passenger travel by 10 per cent and freight travel by 5 per cent by 2040, while 15 per cent of freight on articulated trucks and 5 per cent on rigid trucks would shift to rail too.
Rowe, from the Climateworks Centre, said the modelling showed governments needed to ratchet up policies to encourage the electric vehicle transition but also develop policies to guide investment in public and active transport and rail freight, which had additional benefits for liveability in growing cities.
Experts say targets are needed to increase the share of trips taken by walking, cycling or public transport.Credit: Jessica Hromas
“Even if we transition every car and every truck to a zero emission option, particularly as we have population growth, those vehicles are still traffic,” Rowe said.
Melbourne University transport planning lecturer John Stone, who was not involved in the research, said governments needed to set targets to increase the share of climate friendly transport modes.
“Once we have them, a lot of the investment decisions that we currently make – will we widen this road for cars or will we improve public transport? – become much simpler,” Stone said.
NSW is aiming to double walking and cycling trips over the next 20 years while Victoria has said it will expand active transport to 25 per cent of trips by 2030, from 18 per cent in 2021. But neither state nor the federal government has targets for increasing public transport trips or reducing private vehicle use.
The federal government last month launched consultation on a transport emissions road map and has flagged it may include policies to encourage investment in active and public transport. It may also consider how investment decisions – such as in new roads or rail lines – encourage or discourage road transport.
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