Sustainable Mobility

Concepts, Risks and Prospects

Kyoto Symposium

7.5.2024
Ortwin Rennr

Macroscopic Trends
Ecological Trends

Population and consumption growth
Climate change and biodiversity losses
Exceeding sink capacity

Economic Trends

Globalization and Re-nationalization
Digitalization
Circular economy

Social and Cultural Trends

Widening gap in distribution of opportunities and income
Systemic risks (pandemics, cybercrime, populism)
Threat of cultural identity

Effects
What do these trends imply forsustainability?

Conceptual Meaning

Definitionooo

Orientation
To secure the environmental foundations forhuman survivability and to maintain humaneliving conditions
For the present and future generations
worldwide

Dimensions of Sustainabilityooo

Ecology
Economics
Social and cultural aspects

Dimensions and subdimensions
Ecologyooo

EconomyoooDecarbonization
Dematerialization and emission minimization
Renaturalization
Circular economy
Lasting quality of life and work
Dynamic adaptation to changing environmental
conditions (innovations)Social and cultural dimensions
ooo

Social justice (intra- und intergenerational)
Peaceful conflict resolution
Individual and social identity and cultural meaning

Consequences for Mobility I: Ecologyooooo

The environmental impact at of cars depend mainly on threeparameters: fuel, weight (material) and recycling rate. In addition,traffic systems demand large amounts of space (biodiversity)
The cost of the health impacts of air pollution in OECD countries(including deaths and illness) was about USD 1.7 trillion in 2020.
Available evidence suggests that road transport accounts for about
50% of this cost in the OECD, or close to USD 1 trillion.
About 28% of total energy consumption in 2021 was fortransporting people and goods from one place to another.
Transportation : 25%-30% of global CO2 emissions (78% by carsand trucks),
Transport is the only sector where greenhouse gas emissions
increased, rising 33.5% between 1990 and 2019.

Consequences for Mobility II: Ecologyooooooo

The production and disposal of an electric car is less environmentally friendly
than that of a car with an internal combustion engine (depending on how theelectricity is produced).
However, battery electric vehicles emit significantly less greenhouse gases overtheir lifetime, but some of the gains are lost due to their increased weight.
The impacts on health are small, even if battery production is included
Over the past ten years, the average weight of vehicles sold has increased byabout 9% or around 100kg
A net mass increase of 100kg potentially results in an additional 500-650kg ofgreenhouse gas emissions and 1.9-2.4 MWh of energy demand in vehicle
production (without battery, including recycling).
EU: 93.6 % of the parts and materials were reused, recovered or recycled.

Consequences for Mobility III-Economyoooooo

Today there are more than 1.35 billion vehicles in use in the world
40 million (around 3 percent) of them are electric or plug -in.
Automobile (16,000 bn passenger km), followed by Buses (7,000),
Air (2,800), Railways (1,900), and Urban Rail (250).
The market share of electric vehicles sold per year increased fromroughly 2 percent in 2017 to about 18 percent in 2022.
Between 2022 and 2028, the size of the global electric vehicle
market is expected to increase from 538.8 to 906.7 billion U.S.
dollars by 2028
In 2022 and 2023 the demand for electric cars has beenstabalizing and partly decreased (Europe)
The market penetration of electric vehicles lacks behind plans andscenarios for climate-neutral transportation in 2050

Consequences for Mobility IV-SocialoThere are major differences in the share of electric cars per capita in the world

oThere is the risk of strong dependencies on world trade from monopolies

oAcceptance of electric cars is slow and consumer preferences are still divided

ooooooo

The main barriers for purchasing electric cars are:Range of distance to be covered by one full charge
Lack of charging stations
Higher price/lack of sufficient governmental incentives
Concerns about re-sale value and energy efficiency
Many governmental programs for subsidies or other financial incentives forbuying electric cars (varies from one country to another)
Infrastructure lacks behind actual demandSource. Wkipedia

Source. Wkipedia

Battery manufacturing, concentrated in China(83% of the production capacity)

TWhFigure 1.20 ⊳Lithium-i on b a t t e r y m a n u f a c t u r i n g c a p a c i t y b y r e g i o n , 2 0 2 0 - 2 0 2 33OtherJapanKorea
United States2Europe
China

12020

2021

2022

2023

Note: TWh = terawatt-hours. Battery manufacturing capacity refers to battery cells. Source: IEA analysis based onBenchmark Minerals data, Source: S&P Global (2023) quoted from Ialnazov, Dimiter (2024): Vulnerabilities Related to the Energy
23

Transition in Indonesia andViet Nam. Presentation at the International Symposium on Systemic Risk and Poly-crises Governance, 9-10, May
2024, Beijing, China

Source: S&P Global (2023) quoted from Ialnazov, Dimiter (2024): Vulnerabilities Related to the Energy26 Risk andTransition in Indonesia and Viet Nam. Presentation at the International Symposium on Systemic
Poly-crises Governance, 9-10, May 2024, Beijing, China

Source: Silvana Secinaro, Davide Calandra, Federico Lanzalonga, Alberto Ferraris (2022):,
Electric vehicles’ consumer behaviours: Mapping the field and providing a research agenda,
Journal of Business Research,, 150: 399-416

EU Policy on Emission Reduction
To reduce emissions from road transport, the EU
intends to complement the proposed CO2 targets forcars and vans, with:•••••A new emissions trading system (ETS) for road transportand buildings
Financial and logistical support for renewable fuels
The removal of tax advantages for fossil fuels
A revision of the alternative fuels infrastructure legislation to
expand capacity
An information and communication campaign to address
consumer concerns

Conclusions I
Sustainability

Dynamic preservation of environmental foundation andhumane living conditions
Need for a balanced trade-off between globalization,
digitalization and circular economy

Mobility

Transportation is still responsible for almost 25% of all
CO2 emissions
Transportation is a major contributor to premature
mortality and morbidityTransportation is a major factor for biodiversity losses

Conclusions II
Benefits of electrification of transport systems

A considerable decrease in CO2 emissions, depending
on electricity production patterns
A considerable decrease in air and water pollution,
depending on recycling (reuse), street conditions (tireware) and battery production conditions
No advantage with respect to space allocation
An economic opportunity for the cooperation of car
manufacturer, battery manufacturer und IT industry

Conclusions III
Risks of electrification of transport systems

Weight increase of vehicles combined with more energyconsumption, material use and environmental impacts
Increase of environmentally toxic waste depending on
the recycling and reuse program of batteries
Increase of dependency on few monopolies in thesupply chain
Lack of enthusiasm by consumers based on concerns
about infrastructure, range, price and efficiency

QUOTE:
Sustainability is often misunderstood. it does notmean securing what we have. The focus is noton conservation but on innovation anddevelopment. The world needs change, yet thischange must obey a different rationale, i.e., theparadigm of environmental protection and social
justice with respect to the present and the future
generations...

Kofi Annan

Thanks you for your attention!
Ortwin Renn
Reserach Institute for SustainabilityStudies(RFS)
Berliner Str. 130
14467 Potsdam
Germany
ortwin.renn@rifs-potsdam.de