An anonymous reader shared this report from the Los Angeles Times.
A network of air monitors installed in Northern California has provided scientists with some of the first measurable evidence quantifying how much electric vehicles are reducing carbon dioxide emissions in metropolitan areas. Researchers at the University of California, Berkeley have installed dozens of sensors across the Bay Area to monitor global warming carbon dioxide, the massive greenhouse gas produced when fossil fuels are burned.According to a study published in the same journal, carbon emissions in the region fell by 1.8% annually from 2018 to 2022, but Berkeley researchers believe that almost all of that was due to drivers switching to electric vehicles. concluded that environmental science and technology.
Californians purchased approximately 719,500 zero-emissions or plug-in hybrid vehicles during this period, more than triple the number in the previous five years, according to the California Department of Energy. The Bay Area had a higher rate of electric vehicle adoption than the state as a whole.
While the findings confirm that the state's transition to zero-emission vehicles has significantly reduced carbon emissions, these reductions are still on pace to meet the state's ambitious climate change goals. It is also clear that this has not been achieved. Emissions will need to fall by about 3.7% a year, nearly twice the rate observed in the monitors, said Ronald Cohen, a chemistry professor at the University of California, Berkeley. Cars and trucks are the state's largest source of carbon dioxide emissions, highlighting the need to deploy zero-emissions technology in homes and on the power grid.
“I think what we're seeing now is evidence of great success in the transportation sector,” Cohen said. “Residential and commercial heating; [industrial] sauce. Even though cities cover only about 3% of the world's surface area, they generate about 70% of carbon emissions.