Cleaner vehicles and charging infrastructure: greening passenger fleets for sustainable mobility
Mobility is essential for economic and social development, but the transport sector in most countries is not sustainable in its existing form. Reducing Greenhouse Gas (GHG) emissions and local pollutants in the transport sector will create a cleaner, healthier and more livable future for everyone. Electric mobility (e-mobility) represents a crucial opportunity to develop a more sustainable transport system. Electrification of transport offers significant environmental benefits and at the same time produces a long-lasting economic impact. E-mobility is an important way to mitigate air pollution by reducing carbon intensity of the transport sector as it has better efficiency than internal combustion engine (ICE) vehicles and has zero tailpipe emissions. Through electrification of transport, the International Energy Agency (IEA) estimates that electric vehicles can reduce GHG emissions by almost half compared to an equivalent fleet of ICE vehicles under existing government policies. The note identifies tangible actions and policies that governments can adopt to facilitate the adoption of e-mobility in passenger transport. In doing so, it identifies practical considerations that governments should keep in mind when facilitating e-mobility adoption. Passenger transport includes public, shared, and private transport. This technical note places a strong emphasis on public and shared transport as improving it: helps make the transport system less congested, reducing the need for many separate trips by private vehicles; can benefit people across all income strata; and can, with higher utilization, harness the operational cost savings of electrification faster than relatively low utilization private vehicles.
