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Telecommuting, Bikes, and Cleaner Cars Can Save Cities $70 Trillion by 2050

The International Energy Agency (IEA) is worried that city-dwelling humans are soon going to be sucking down too much power to get around.
Image: Wikimedia

The International Energy Agency (IEA) is worried that city-dwelling humans are soon going to be sucking down too much power to get around. As billions of people flock to cities, tens of trillions of dollars are poised to be spent on oil, gas, and other fuels. And that's saying nothing of the almost unimaginable plume of carbon emissions and particulate pollution they'll collectively create.

These cities, booming now, may find themselves snarled in traffic a la Sao Paulo and blanketed in smog like Beijing. The IEA's latest research leaves the group expecting global travel "to double by 2050 and corresponding transport energy use and emissions to increase 70 percent between 2010 and 2050, despite expected vehicle technology improvements."

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IEA

Which is ugly news for an already emissions-choked civilization like ours. Carbon dioxide already constitutes 400 parts per million in the atmosphere, and we're on track to double that—and much of them come from cars, which comprise the backbone of the current global transit system.

But if the specter of global emissions overload isn't incentive enough to change trajectory, the IEA offers another: together, the cities of the world stand to save $70 trillion if they implement measures to discourage driving and make transportation cleaner and more efficient.

Because this globe-spanning city-ward migration could also prove a major boon to global energy use, too—since we know metropolises are on track to rapidly expand, good planning could yield cities with low-emissions alternatives like more public transportation, bike-sharing schemes, and better-managed commutes. If we're smart, we could end up with more efficient, less energy-guzzling societies on a whole.

The guidelines the IEA suggests cities embrace to limit emissions and congestion are focused around three tenets: "Avoid, Shift, Improve."

Which may sound sort of like some toothless TED-speak, but the ideas are unambiguous and straightforward. For instance, "'Avoid' policies … include initiatives such as virtual mobility programmes (e.g. tele-working) and implementation of logistics technology."

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"Shift" essentially means axing car travel for alternatives: implementing bike-shares and better cycling infrastructure, ceding highway lanes to dedicated bus rapid transit, and giving rail precedence. "Improve" includes the mildest measures, like instituting policies that encourage cleaner cars.

"'Improve' policies include tightened fuel-economy standards and increased advanced-vehicle technology sales (e.g. clean diesel trucks and hybrid and plug-in electric cars)," the report explains.

If the guidelines are implemented, the IEA—which, by the way, is among the most respected authorities on global energy issues, anywhere—says cities stand to save $70 trillion in fuel and operating costs. Some of it's interesting, but kept vague: could municipalities, for instance, offer companies modest tax incentives to encourage telecommuting? It's an idea. Congestion taxes and more spending on public transit are also no-brainers.

A lot of this will be politically difficult, even if it makes perfect sense on paper—a burgeoning megalopolis in, say, Indonesia isn't like running a Sim City, obviously. But waving a figure that size around is probably capable of turning planners' heads from Paris to Shanghai. Reducing emissions is one thing—shoring up budgets and increasing the quality of life by slashing commutes is another altogether.