NEW YORK CITY — As companies look to continue to capitalize on the clean energy funding included in the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law and the Inflation Reduction Act, Ali Zaidi, President Joe Biden’s national climate policy advisor, said Wednesday that it’s time to “lean into” decarbonizing the transportation sector.
Zaidi, speaking to Climate Week NYC attendees at the Javits Center Wednesday, said transportation is a “powerful area” to concentrate decarbonization efforts on because of the scale of the sector’s emissions.
“The transportation sector is now the largest sector of emissions for the United States,” Zaidi said, adding that slashing emissions generated from vehicles is “an opportunity that more and more countries are running to seize” to curb their carbon footprint.
The transportation sector was responsible for 29% of U.S. emissions in 2022, according to the Environmental Protection Agency. Light-duty trucks — which include SUVs, minivans and pickup trucks — accounted for 37% of the sector’s emissions in 2022, followed by medium- and heavy-duty trucks (23%) and passenger cars (20%).
While that means 80% of the sector’s emissions come from road vehicles — compared to 20% collectively from commercial aircrafts (7%), other aircrafts (2%); pipelines (4%); ships and boats (3%); and rail transport (2%) — Zaidi said the administration takes a broad view of the sector and the work needed.
“When we think about [the transportation sector], we don't just think about light-duty vehicles or heavy-duty vehicles,” Zaidi told attendees. “We [also] think about rail and marine and aviation. Increasingly, none of that is hypothetical; it's actually fuel in the tank or tires on the road.”
Zaidi — who became Biden’s second climate policy advisor after former climate envoy John Kerry left the administration in the spring — said decarbonizing transportation represents a “massive public health opportunity,” in addition to its climate benefits. Zaidi said $8 trillion of global public health spending went to addressing pollution-related health costs in 2023.
“Think about where those [polluting] particulates and where those criteria pollutants are normally coming from — they're coming from the burning of diesel,” he said. “ So our chance to pivot to the fuels of the future in transportation is a really big one.”
