The Emperor's New Car: why electric cars won't solve energy issues

“In 21st century consumer culture, even ostensibly useful items like running shoes and cars are frequently replaced, not because they are worn out, but because they no longer produce sufficient gratification in the form of status or novelty.” [The Emperor's New Car]

A car buyer’s guide is not where I expected to find the most penetrating analysis of western consumer culture I’ve read in a long time, but that is exactly what The Dog and Lemon Guide’s editor Clive Matthew-Wilson has provided in the brilliant “The Emperor’s New Car”. The Emperor’s New Car is ostensibly a critique of the economic and environmental value of electric cars but in order to make his points Matthew-Wilson has poured question upon question until he gets to the root of the problem: it is our materialistic lifestyle that is killing the planet not the use of petrol-fuelled cars.

Matthew-Wilson begins by comparing the advantages and disadvantages of electric cars. On the positives, they improve air quality, reduce traffic noise, reduce reliance on oil from politically volatile countries, reduce emissions (but only if using electricity from renewable sources) and may be more fuel efficient. These advantages are balanced by the negatives: most electricity is produced from highly damaging fossil fuels, electric cars are still less efficient than mass public transit, there is a serious shortage of accessible energy, private cars are an unsustainable transport model, and they are being financed with taxpayers’ money as a bailout of car companies.

The world’s shortage of oil, says Matthew-Wilson, can be best understood as an energy shortage. This is exacerbated by energy wastage and resulting pollution. The West’s energy lifestyle relies on the East staying poor and undeveloped. 25 percent of the world uses 85 percent of its resources. The world simply does not have the resources, renewable or otherwise, to sustain lavish lifestyles in the west let alone across the globe.

Car ownership is embedded in western culture and with it an illusory sense of freedom. But the private electric car cannot solve the US energy and pollution problem because the private car is not the biggest waster of energy in America. That honour goes to homes mostly poorly designed and poorly insulated, far from services and now full of gadgets that are an energy sink. Worldwide the demand from gadgets will require building the equivalent of 560 coal-fired power plants, or 230 nuclear plants and while experts are promoting mandatory efficiency rules no one is advocating restraint in purchases of consumer electronics.

Shipping is also major problem. As few as 16 ships create as much pollution as all the cars in the world. These ships carry consumer goods providing temporary gratification. The nub of the problem therefore, says the report is not so much the car by itself, but a package deal of wasteful cars, wasteful suburbs based around cars, together with a wasteful society based around consumption, with the car as the most obvious symbol of this waste. “Changing the way that American cars are powered will not solve the built-in problems of the American system of over-consumption.”

Globally the problem of materialism is compounded by energy wastage. China’s growth and demand for energy soon outstrip any environmental gains made within the West. The West’s addiction to consumption has fed the uncontrolled Chinese boom with its poor safety record. China's vast underground coal fires make an enormous, hidden contribution to global warming annually releasing 360 million tons of carbon dioxide as much as all the cars and light trucks in the US.

The report also side-tracks into such unexpected places as the dangers of WalMart car parks, the US diet and excess consumption. The conclusion is straight-forward and likely to be unpalatable to many: the only way a society hooked on excess energy consumption can solve the problem of excess energy consumption is to reduce its energy consumption to a sustainable level. The problem with the electric car movement, said Matthew-Wilson, is that it is based around the falsehood that it is possible to continue the American car-based lifestyle of the twentieth century by changing the form of energy used to power it. Read the report and act; it is a clear-eyed and compelling prescription for societal change.

Brisbane commits itself to the 20th century: Newman approves another tunnel

Brisbane Mayor Campbell Newman announced the building of a third tunnel today linking the Western Freeway and the Inner City By-Pass to be built entirely with council funds. Newman said Brisbane City Council had approved funding from the Queensland Government with excavation to begin by the end of next year. He says the 4.7km tunnel will be built by 2014 and will go ahead without a private partner (unlike the North-South & Airport Link tunnels it follows). The project will cost $1.7 billion at current estimates. The Rudd Government will fund half a billion of that as an election promise and Newman believes he may squeeze another $300m out of them. That still leaves a billion dollars to be funded by Brisbane ratepayers.

Newman claims the tunnel had a “compelling case” to solve the traffic problems of getting from the west of Brisbane to the north. The council says South-East Queensland’s rapid population growth and development is placing significant pressure on roads, leading to congestion, delays, increased accident rates and reduced urban amenity. It believes efficient movement of people and goods is important for maintaining quality of life and economic sustainability and Northern Link will help free up the congested arterial road network from “unnecessary cross-city traffic”.

But is this investment the best use of a billion dollars of council money? Will the rising price of oil eventually leave these tunnels as expensive white elephants? And should Brisbane be promoting transport solutions that favour private motor vehicles in an era when we are supposed to be moving towards a carbon neutral society? Why indeed are federal governments underwriting this behaviour?

The contradictions of Brisbane Council’s actions are obvious in their own Annual Report. This document lauds its own commitment to buy 100 percent “green power” while elsewhere on the same page it boasts about spending billions on road tunnels and the Hale St Bridge. The assumption is that these developments are good for Brisbane so there is little concern for what is lost or what it costs. Newman riffs off his "Cando" nickname and those that are against the plan are pilloried as standing in the way of progress.

But protest groups do exist. The likes of Communities Against the Tunnels and Stop the Hale Street Bridge Alliance lament the council’s shortsightedness on environmental grounds. They say future historians will judge the “Clem7” North South Bypass Tunnel which opens next year as Brisbane’s biggest mistake since Clem Jones removed the trams (so perhaps ironically appropriate the tunnel is named for Jones). There are also single-issue groups such as the Toowong Tunnels Solutions Group which focuses specifically on the number of off-ramps on the Northern Link.

Thi follows the public submissions to the Northern Link most of which which were opposed to tunnel exits in Toowong and Kelvin Grove. People objected on several grounds such as increased local traffic, noise and air quality issues, pedestrian and cyclist concerns, loss of social connectivity and amenity and impacts associated with construction. Mayor Newman has assured them there will be no intermediate exit points which may close down opposition – and make the tunnel cheaper.

But there is very little scrutiny about the overall wisdom of Newman’s ambitious multi-billion five tunnel strategy. The media seem more content about beating up traffic jams than questioning whether there is a better way of solving the problems. Politically, it is the continuation of a Queensland tradition of untrammelled development with very little consideration for the long-term. For the last 50 years transport policies in this state have focussed on the public funding of large scale roadways. One of the few voices to question this approach is Chris Butler in his law journal paper “Slicing through space”. He says government departments attempt to impose large scale technological solutions for transport problems without regard for their wider impacts on urban life. Butler calls it “brutal modernism”.

But the peak hour problems that Newman is supposedly trying to solve are not caused by insufficient road capacity. It is because of the immense dislocation between where people live and work. Increasingly people are moving to new housing estates far from the city and far from public transport. Governments eagerly help the movement of people to these remote but cheap areas with the aid of generous home ownership grants. But when they move into their new homes, they find the roads are the only way of getting about. They then become part of the problem, which as Chris Butler says, is a structurally dependence of Australian society on the car. This is the real problem that we need to solve – and Cando's tunnels will be of no help.

Nine More Deaths

(Memorial Brigade Hill, Kokoda Track, Papua New Guinea by Arthur Chapman)

Parliament was hushed today as Malcolm Turnbull asked PM Kevin Rudd today about the fate of nine Australians among 13 people to die in a plane crash in PNG. While my deepest sympathies go out to the bereaved families concerned, I have to ask why this Dorothy Dixer question was addressed to, and answered by, the Prime Minister of Australia? I appreciate that the proximity of so many deaths to the Kokoda Trail where Australians troops repelled Japan in 1942 gave the crash a hallowed feel. I am also sympathetic to Malcolm Turnbull’s genuine grief around his own father’s similar death. Yet I am not convinced the crash was the question of such national importance it was afforded today. Stephen Smith’s foreign affairs department could have handled this adequately.

If that seems harsh, consider whether Turnbull (or any other parliamentarian) would ever open Question Time calling for a nation to mourn when the next nine people die on Australian roads. He or she wouldn't have to wait long. As the average of almost five deaths a day shows, nine people will probably die in the 48 hours following tomorrow’s likely defeat of the federal government's emissions trading scheme in the Senate.

And unlike the fickle fate that ended the lives of the 13 people in foggy mountains short of a PNG runway, a discussion of the meaning of Australian road statistics is absolutely relevant to what Turnbull and Rudd were supposed to be discussing today. Car driving habits are one of the main reasons Australia’s carbon emissions are 4.5 times the global average, just behind the US. And car deaths are the result of car habits.

This is the selfishness at the heart of our behaviour that our government and opposition seem incapable of addressing. And so while Liberals and Labor alike are noble and bi-partisan in the grief of an overseas accident, neither seem interested in forging an agreement over a coherent and comprehensive response to climate change ahead of the December Copenhagen conference.

There is no point in waiting for that conference to act. As Rudd was (probably deliberately) overheard telling the Danish PM a few weeks ago, Copenhagen won’t change anything. It is likely the Chinese and Indians won’t agree to 50 percent targets by 2050 and can point to the selfish behaviour of western countries like Australia in defence of their own actions. The best Australia can do is take a carbon reduction policy to the table. Such a policy may not be perfect and will likely need fine tuning over the years to come. But it will be a start and it will get companies thinking seriously about the externalities of their actions.

That campaign eventually needs to focus on people as well as companies. There is overwhelming endorsement for action - roughly three out of every four Australians want their politicians to take more action about it. But these people need to be shown they can do something about it too.

According to the ABS, over 80 percent of all Australians journeys are made by car. Australian roads are so crowded it is a miracle that only five people die in accidents every day. It is this culture that Turnbull and Rudd need to change if Australia is to ever get serious about climate change action. In 2005, the transport sector accounted for about 14 per cent of Australia's net greenhouse gas emissions. This means more than just agreeing on a pollution permits scheme (and god knows that is difficult enough) but a concerted campaign to change the way Australians live their stratified lives.

A ban on car ads on television would be a good starting point. Every corporately-funded TV station (including SBS) shows at least one carmaker ad every commercial break seductively selling its wares and these are supplemented by ads for oil companies, tyre makers, and various car accessories. While all these activities are correctly legal (as is smoking) they should be banned from mass media ads as they promote a lifestyle that is increasing bad for people, and bad for the planet. It is also an increasingly arrogant practice. New AAMI research has found that 83 per cent of drivers believe yelling, swearing and gesturing rudely are justifiable responses to traffic indiscretions by other road users. Most drivers blame congestion for blowing their top. The human toll is growing - it is time driving was reined in. How many deaths will it take for Turnbull and Rudd to be bi-partisan about tackling this problem?