When we talk about the climate, we all say that we must switch to new electric cars as soon as possible, but that is not totally true as published by Japanese researchers in the Journal of Industrial Ecology 2021 in an article entitled “A generalized framework for analyzing car lifetime effects on stock, flow, and carbon footprint”
Of course, new cars are better and pollute less, but according to these researchers, maintaining current cars for a certain time is positive for climate change. Something hardly anyone knows.
The study has been published by some professors from Kyushu University in Japan, and in it they have taken into account not only the pollution generated by gasoline consumption, but also that generated in the manufacture of the car, its spare parts in a period of life considered, etc ...
In Japan, cars have an average life of about 13 years, and at 7 they are sold on the second-hand market, so these data can be extrapolated to many other developed countries.
One of the problems with cars is that their manufacture accounts for an important part of the polluting emissions, and by lengthening their useful life we avoid that pollution, or at least we delay it.
According to this study, making cars last a little longer in use reduces global CO2 emissions, and what they say makes some sense.
And very especially when most of the electrical energy needed to charge new electric cars is still of fossil origin. The change of the energy supply is most urgent to implement, making this energy non-polluting as soon as possible.
I am clear that the fight against climate change has different fronts of action that must be carried out in parallel. The problem is so great that it cannot be solved by acting step by step, but rather globally and with all fronts at the same time.
It is a huge bet that will bring many new opportunities for those who know how to take advantage of them, and that will leave others by the wayside because they are not quick enough to change.
Lamenting afterward won't do them any good.
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