Customize the use of cookies

This website uses cookies to provide more efficient navigation and analyze visitor traffic. You will find detailed information about them below.

Cookies classified as "Necessary" will be stored in your browser, as they are essential for enabling the basic functionalities of the site. We also use third-party cookies aimed at analytics (Google Analytics), which help us analyze how you use this website. You can choose to enable or disable some of these cookies, but doing so may affect your browsing experience.

Always Active

These cookies are required to provide basic functionality of the website and cannot be disabled. They do not store any private or personally identifiable data.

These cookies allow us to understand how visitors interact with the website and provide information related to the number of visits, traffic sources, and bounce rates.

These cookies are used to provide visitors with personalized ads based on the pages they previously visited and to analyze the effectiveness of advertising campaigns. They are usually related to the integration of social media videos on the website.

Date: 13/10/2020.

Publication type: Research article.

Author(s): Ignacio de Blas, Margarita Mediavilla, Iñigo Capellán-Pérez, Carmen Duce

Keywords: Climate, Sustainable development, Energy and materials.

Short description:

Achieving ambitious reductions in greenhouse gases (GHG) is particularly challenging for transportation due to the technical limitations of replacing oil-based fuels. We apply the integrated assessment model MEDEAS-World to study four global transportation decarbonization strategies for 2050. The results show that a massive replacement of oil-fueled individual vehicles to electric ones alone cannot deliver GHG reductions consistent with climate stabilization and could result in the scarcity of some key minerals, such as lithium and magnesium. In addition, energy-economy feedbacks within an economic growth system create a rebound effect that counters the benefits of substitution. The only strategy that can achieve the objectives globally follows the Degrowth paradigm, combining a quick and radical shift to lighter electric vehicles and non-motorized modes with a drastic reduction in total transportation demand.