WHITE PAPER J ULY 2021 A GLOBAL COMPARISON OF THE LIFE-CYCLE GREENHOUSE GAS EMISSIONS OF COMBUSTION ENGINE AND ELECTRIC PASSENGER CARS Georg Bieker www.theicct.org
[email protected] twitter @theicct BEIJING | BERLIN | SAN FRANCISCO | SÃO PAULO | WASHINGTON ACKNOWLEDGMENTS The author thanks all ICCT colleagues who contributed to this report, with special thanks to Yidan Chu, Zhinan Chen, Sunitha Anup, Nikita Pavlenko, and Dale Hall for regional data input, and Peter Mock, Stephanie Searle, Rachel Muncrief, Jen Callahan, Hui He, Anup Bandivadekar, Nic Lutsey, and Joshua Miller for guidance and review of the analysis. In addition, the author thanks all external reviewers: Pierpaolo Cazzola (ITF), Matteo Craglia (ITF), Günther Hörmandinger (Agora Verkehrswende), Jacob Teter (IEA), and four anonymous individuals; their review does not imply an endorsement. Any errors are the author’s own. For additional information: ICCT – International Council on Clean Transportation Europe Neue Promenade 6, 10178 Berlin +49 (30) 847129-102
[email protected] | www.theicct.org | @TheICCT © 2021 International Council on Clean Transportation Funding for this work was generously provided by the European Climate Foundation and the Climate Imperative Foundation. EXECUTIVE SUMMARY If the transportation sector is to align with efforts supporting the best chance of achieving the Paris Agreement’s goal of limiting global warming to below 2 °C, the greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from global road transport in 2050 need to be dramatically lower than today’s levels. ICCT’s projections show that efforts in line with limiting warming to 1.5 °C mean reducing emissions from the combustion and production of fuels and electricity for transport by at least 80% from today’s levels by 2050, and the largest part of this reduction needs to come from passenger cars.