This post is taken from the newsletter ” Human warmth “sent every Tuesday at 12:30 p.m. Every week, journalist Nabil Wakim, who hosts the Chaleur Humaine podcast, answers questions from Internet users on the climate challenge.
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The question of the week
” Good morning. I heard you answer with a lot of certainty on the show “Daily” that the electric car was good for the climate. But if the electricity is produced by coal, isn’t it worse? Why is no one talking about this problem? » Question asked by Jean-Jacques by email to the address chaud [email protected]
My answer : Thank you for this question, which is (in fact) quite easy to answer: yes, in almost all countries in the world, the electric car has a much better carbon footprint than that of its thermal competitor. However, it also has flaws – and is obviously not enough to reduce the climate impact of transport. (We talked about it at length in this podcast episode with Emmanuel Hache.)
1/ Why electric cars emit less
It is first important to remember that in France, it represents 15% of our greenhouse gas emissions: it is colossal, and it is not really decreasing. Among the range of solutions to decarbonize transport, electricity certainly has flaws but is also part of the solution.
On the problem side: building an electric vehicle emits more carbon than building a gasoline car, in particular because of the manufacturing of the battery. But then, the match is very favorable to electric, since we do not emit greenhouse gases while driving. The difference during manufacturing is largely compensated after two or three years of use on average. All this is well explained on this page from the Carbone 4 firm. As researcher Aurélien Bigo says (in this other episode of “Human Heat “): “The electric car is not a perfect technology, it has environmental impacts and high consumption of metals. But from a climate point of view, that’s two to five times fewer emissions from today in France! »
This advantage is obviously greater in countries which have electricity produced from renewable energies or nuclear power plants, such as France or Sweden. And this is less the case in countries where electricity production is based on coal, such as Poland or India. But even in these countries, the electric car is better in terms of emissions, shows researcher Cédric Philibert in his recent book Why electric cars are good for the climate (Little Mornings). For what ? Because electric is more energy efficient, and therefore consumes less energy than a thermal vehicle.
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