Researchers at Kyushu University have found that Japan’s current policy of stopping the sale of gas vehicles by 2035 and transitioning only to hybrids and electric vehicles could also be insufficient to scale back the country’s CO2 emissions and stop it from reaching its decarbonization goal goals. In reality, emissions may temporarily increase.
The team’s evaluation showed that together with the policy, the Japanese government must concurrently work to extend production of unpolluted energy, decarbonize the manufacturing process, and extend vehicle lifetime.
In the hassle to combat the climate crisis most countries on this planet have implemented policies that reduce their production of greenhouse gases equivalent to CO2, and Japan isn’t any different. One such policy is a ban on the brand new sale of fossil fuel powered vehicles. The country is working to ban the sale of recent gas vehicles by 2035, and move to only sell EVs, HVs, and FCVs, electric vehicles, hybrid vehicles, and fuel cell vehicles respectively.
While this can be a move in the proper direction, Professor Shigemi Kagawa from Kyushu University’s Faculty of Economics reports in his recent paper, published within the Journal of Cleaner Production, that banning recent gas vehicles will not be enough to succeed in Japan’s decarbonization goals.
“Our team focused on how much CO2 is produced during a automobile’s entire lifetime, from the primary resource extracted from the earth to when it gets destroyed. the lifecycle CO2, or LC-CO2, of a automobile allow us to take a bigger view on a automobile’s emissions,” explains Kagawa.
The team found numerous policy points that must be addressed, including decarbonizing the provision chain, improving the country’s energy mix, and lengthening vehicle lifetime.
“Just constructing a automobile is energy intensive. All of the constructing materials must be mined, processed, shipped, and constructed. Every a part of that process produces CO2,” Kagawa continues. “Construction of an EV can produce 1.5 to 2 times more emissions in comparison with a gas automobile. If automobile manufacturers increase their production of EVs without decarbonizing the provision chain, then emissions reduction will stagnate.”
Moving Japan’s energy mix to more renewable sources can also be an important step on this process. A rustic’s energy mix is the ratio of fuel sources it uses to make electricity. In 2020, Japan’s energy mix was 76% fossil fuels and 20% renewables. So, even when everybody switched to EVs the energy required to charge such vehicles still ends in fossil fuel emissions.
“Japan’s planned 2030 energy mix is 50% fossil fuels and 28% renewable energy. That won’t adequately reduce LC-CO2. The EV policy starting in 2035 goals to contribute to a ten% reduction or 2.9 Mt (million tons) of CO2 in vehicle emissions in 2050. This reduction level falls far in need of achieving a carbon-neutral vehicle society,” explains Kagawa. “Japan must aim toward the International Energy Agency (IEA) mixture of 10% fossil fuels and 88% renewables by 2050. Our models show a discount of an extra 10%, a possible of three.4 Mt of CO2, in vehicle emissions in 2050 if Japan follows the IEA policy mix.”
Finally, extending a automobile’s lifetime, for each EVs or gas vehicles, can go an extended solution to reduce LC-CO2. The typical lifespan of a automobile in Japan is 13 years. The research team’s models found that the if a automobile registered between 1993 and 2050 has its average lifetime prolonged by even one 12 months it could reduce as much as 90 Mt of overall CO2 emissions for the country. Conversely, if a vehicle’s lifespan is reduced by one 12 months, inside the same timeframe, CO2 emissions increase by roughly the identical amount.
“Once we expanded our model to extending the lifespan of a vehicle by 10 years, the potential reduction in CO2 emissions will be greater than 600 Mt,” Kagawa states.
The team hopes that their evaluation will encourage Japan to implement these policies so it will probably proceed to effectively combat the climate crisis and make their goal of carbon neutrality by 2050 a reality.
“We will make efforts ourselves by attempting to drive our cars less and for a couple of years longer, and even consider buying used vehicles as an alternative of recent ones,” concludes Kagawa. “But the federal government needs to offer attractive subsidies for those programs, and manufactures should work to encourage vehicle repair and parts substitute. The climate crisis is a posh issue, and the proper policies can go a good distance in providing us a greater future.”
