Around the world, revolutionary changes are underway in transportation. More electric vehicles are on the road, people are taking advantage of shared mobility services, such as Uber and Lyft, and the rise in telework during the COVID-19 pandemic has shifted the way people think about commuting.

Transportation is a growing source of the global greenhouse gas emissions that are driving climate change, accounting for 23% of energy-related carbon dioxide emissions worldwide and 29% of all greenhouse gas emissions in the U.S. in 2019.

The systemic changes underway in the transportation sector could begin lowering that emissions footprint. But will they reduce emissions enough?

In a new report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change released April 4, 2022, scientists from around the world examined the latest research on efforts to mitigate climate change. The report concludes that falling costs for renewable energy and for electric vehicle batteries, in addition to policy changes, have slowed the growth of climate change in the past decade, but that deep, immediate cuts are necessary to stop emissions growth entirely and keep global warming in check.

The transportation chapter, which I contributed to, homed in on transportation transformations—some just starting and others expanding—that in the most aggressive scenarios could reduce global greenhouse gas emissions from transportation by 80% to 90% of current levels by 2050. That sort of drastic reduction would require a major, rapid rethinking of how people get around globally.

Read the full article about the climate-sensitive transportation by Alan Jenn at YES! Magazine.