Irish Examiner view: It’s necessary to accelerate transition

An electric vehicle charging point in Carrigaline, Cork. Just as the pandemic has exposed utterly inadequate broadband capability, the paucity of charging points is delaying conversion to electric.

The world’s energies are focussed on breaking the pandemic’s grip. How could it be otherwise? Nevertheless, other issues, other known knowns, are bubbling away. The climate crisis is foremost among those. Though the US’s reversal of the grim decision to quit the Paris Accord is welcome, there are many areas where we could, and must, do better at modifying our destructive, avoidable behaviour. Dramatically reducing emissions from carbon-fuelled transport is one. 

Electric vehicles will play an important role in that journey, which is more advanced in some countries than others. Transport analysts are increasingly optimists as electric vehicles move towards mass adoption. The falling cost of batteries drives that conversion. Global sales of electric vehicles rose by 43% last year and that trend is expected to accelerate, as they fall below the cost of comparable petrol or diesel models, even without subsidies. That rubicon is anticipated within fours years, but it has already been crossed in Norway, where tax breaks make electric cars the cheaper option. They have, irony of ironies, used their oil wealth to move away from oil. The market share of battery-powered cars hit 54% in Norway last year, but languished at around 5% in most European nations. Ireland did not even match that tiny ratio.