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app. as he testifies at a u. s. congress, hearing she was facing questions about the social media platforms, alleged relationship with the chinese communist party. and it's use thanks have more directly to beijing. ok, you are up to date coming up next. the stream asked how sustainable are electric cars, more news in half an hour talk the law will. the law, when with neither side, willing to negotiate is the ukraine war becoming a forever war is america's global leadership, increasingly fragile. what will you at politics looked like as we had to the presidential election of 2024. the quizzical look us politics, the bottom line with i am josh rushing. welcome to the stream. electric vehicles have been held is essential to reducing carbon emissions in order to avoid global climate catastrophe

. but as the transportation, the transition, the battery powered vehicles picks up speed questions remained about the sustainability of the cars and the environmental and social harms that go into making them. so today we're asking how sustainable are electric vehicles. now 1st let's hear from jim warming to look at human rights watch with his thoughts and entry cars are definitely part of the solution to climate change. but building and actually cause means we need war materials, things like cobalt lithium, alan, minium and steel. and getting those materials out of the ground through mining is often really damaging to the environment and to human rights. so as we transform the car industry, we also got to transform the mining industry transform. the way we source will materials. that means doing a lot more recycling, but it also means treating the ecosystems and communities where these vital war materials are found. with the respect that those communities and ecosystems deserve

. you're wanting us to discuss alyssa kendall, professor of civil and environmental engineering at the university of california davis in oslo. christina bu secretary general, the norwegian e v association. and with us from london, henry sanderson, author of volt rush, the winners and losers in the race to go green. and of course you, we want you to join this conversation as well. so see that box over there with lie producer waiting to get your comments to me so i can get them to our guest. so how about we do this thing together, right? art henry, i want to begin with, you can you set us up here with one why it's important to transition to ease. but let's just begin with that. why is it important right now to transition to evey's? yes. say to reduce carbon emissions and limit the damage from climate change. we need to, to carbonized pretty much every, every sector. and transportation is one of those key sectors which accounts for

about 1516 percent of global carbon emissions. and as the i p c. c set this week, we have a window of opportunity we need to move fast. and what's so important about electric vehicles is we have the technology at scale. now we have a. busy costs of come down a lot and electric vehicles i think work for, for most people. so what we need to do now is scale up batteries, scale up electric vehicles and replace the, you know, eventually to 1500000 vehicles on the road. but it is a massive task ahead of us, but the good news is we have the technology at scale and the costs of come down significantly. considering the environmental news this week, the i p c. c report came out saying that we've got about 10 years left before it may be too late to stop. what's coming this, this transition needs to happen fast. we turned to norway, where i think 80 percent a new car sells their r e v is compare that to the us where it's going pass here. but when we upped it up

by percent, a new car sales or e v 's. so my question for you, christina, is, is how does a society transition quickly enough? because i imagine they're all sorts of effects that happen when you shift that quickly. yeah. and just to make sure we talk about the same thing, east 80 percent, even this doesn't include plug in hybrid, it's a full electric cars. and so that was said last year and, and now we're actually yeah. above that as well. so far this year. so and what normally has done is really simple. it's possible to copy for pretty much every country. it's all about green taxes. so it's about taxing and petulant, he sledging cars on, on the sale of the car. and then a not detox ease. because evie is i still am more expensive to, to manufacture and therefore consumers, most places can't afford them. and

a norway we've managed to make the prize more or less equal and that has resulted in and in may same development. the last 10 years we've moved from a 3 percent market share to 2 above 80. wow. we have some video comments from people in our community this in a min on this. this is from david a right both. he's a senior engineer at union of concerned scientists here listen of us. transportation is the largest cause of he trapping emissions the united states and passenger vehicle for the single largest source within that sector. switching from gasoline and diesel cars and trucks to electric vehicles means no tailpipe emissions that are harmful to human health and fuel climate change. even when considering manufacturing electric vehicles are responsible for less than half the lifetime global warming emissions of similar gasoline vehicles. so switching to electric vehicles as soon as possible is critical to avoiding the worst impacts of climate change. so alissa, after

a century of being on fossil fuels were cars. it seems like we hope we have learned some lessons, maybe about the way not to do this. and this is a chance to kind of start over and start over a new what are some things that we should be looking for here for the way that this industry is going to change the automobile industry than the coming years? yeah, that's a great question. so, i mean, i think what we've seen is that the, the world is asking that we don't undertake this transition and moving away from internal combustion engine vehicles to battery powered vehicles without improving our history of the communities at that are affected by the production of vehicles and in particular, the battery for electric vehicles. i'm and asking that we do better. and i think we're seeing a movement in many parts of the world, but particularly in europe to really push for up for different rules for how he make batteries and make sure that some of the human rights violations and environmental disasters that are may occur. and that really we,

we prevent that. and so i think that we are, we are looking to make this transition to sort of, to avoid the mistakes of, of the last 100 years as we do undertake this transition. the other thing to point out of course, is that we need to de carbonized our electricity grids along with vehicle electrification. and if, if we couple those together, that's where we get those really deep reductions in greenhouse gas emissions and other pollutants. so this is a 2 pronged effort electrify the fleet, and d carbonite c electricity grids. oh, i want to bring in some comments, offer you to people who are watching this right now. this is from ginger dano, who mistook mentor, says, don't we need gas and oil to make evey's any way, henry, i'm gonna bring that to you. but there's also a video comment that i want to bring him because it's not just the lithium in the battery. it's other miner's minerals as well, white cobalt, right down in the congo here. let's check out this video comment 1st. one of the most urgent ethical considerations regarding the manufacturer of electric vehicles

is the mining of cobalt cobalt is used in the battery packs of most electric vehicles and about 3 fourths of the world's supply of cobalt is mind in rather appalling conditions in the democratic republic. of the congo, hundreds of thousands of people work in highly toxic hazardous and dangerous conditions to scrounge cobalt out of the ground and fitted up the chain to electric vehicle manufacturers and big mining companies have destroyed the environment clear cut millions of trees and dump toxic affluence every day into the earth, air, and water in the congo. so andrea, i want you to talk about the, the problems with this kind of new extraction industry. but i'm gonna play one more video for you as, as perhaps one of the solutions. i'm not sure if you've seen this, but it's this kind of battery passport. and maybe we can talk about that as well. to check out this the battery passport creates a digital twin of the battery that stores all information about the battery in the

cloud. from where the minerals and metals of the battery are mind and refined to where and how the cells in the battery are me. and where the cells are put together to form the battery that will go into the vehicle. the battery gets an id number, a bar code, and other information which are sent to the digital twin in the cloud. the digital twin holds all the important information about that battery and the battery passport, not born hope all of the digital twins from all over the world are henry's. i need you to reconcile this for me because i read a and see new source all the time. from the congo or you see, you know, kick kids out there to dig this up and really dangerous conditions. ah, not environmentally friendly. and then i see an animation like that with really chip or music. and i'm trying to figure i it, is this theoretical or is it actually going to be better this time? yes, so there's a really good question. so taking taking that the 2 questions on,

on the oil, the viewer is exactly right. if you look at the lithium ion battery and most t v, especially in china, the, they can contain a material called graphite. and some graphite synthetic graphite is made using feedstock from the oil industry. so fossil fuels is going directly into a lot of lithium on batteries and also we need diesel fossil fuels, not the most mining. right. so most mines is diesel trucks. they use fossil fuels, the process, lithium, many people don't realize. natural gas is part of the process, so it's very hard to get rid of natural gas in the process of processing. lithium, i said that's the fossil fuel angle. the colo tangle is ready trouble to and i'm actually reading the book of that person who submitted that video clip. and i'd be in the d. c. myself. and it is incredibly problematic. but, but what's happening and why i write my book is to open our eyes to the supply

chain in the hope that we can improve it. and we're seeing efforts by the d. c. government, by other groups to try and improve the situation to try and make sure these people get got a fair price, get safety equipment, etc. of course it is a huge challenge and no one's saying that it's going to be perfect tomorrow, but we shouldn't let the perfect be the enemy of this energy transition. we have to move towards the bees and we can improve a supply chain right as well. if we are aware of the problems, we can apply our innovation and our skills to improve it and fossil fuels. we can to colonize the mining industry. we can do colonize the way these materials are processed and for cobo, what we need to see is, yeah, some, some we need to step in and engage with the d r c and acknowledge our responsibility for this cobo is coming out of the country. we need automated company to, to properly engage on. so going to the country to visit was for too long,

especially for consumer electronics. we've just turned a blind eye to, to the cold, also going into what are devices, all small things. so the fact is green good is an advantage because people care about how it's made. christina, you know, to jump in there. yeah, i could add to add to that because i, i had an organization in norway who read that represents more than a 120000 e b drivers. and we've asked them and almost 90 percent to confirm that they are very eager to know. and how sustainable a battery is and how, you know, workers' rights are, you know, looked after and, and so on. so, and, but i think also we have to look at a broader picture here and with congo. and especially it's been a lot of talk about congo, but we also have cobalt, other places in finland, for example. and another thing is that an amnesty international which has focused

a lot on congo and child's child labor and so on. they are not, they're not saying that we should stop to import, stop importing, cobbled from congo. and what we have to do is to make sure that just the whole value chain of battery is a says sustainable, and that we know exactly what's going on. because there are also mines in cobbled that are as well and well regulated and, and, and good minds. but there are also a lot of irregular minds as well. so we have to make sure that i mean, isn't good for the people who, congo that if nobody wants to trade with them either. so we have to sort of think about her, the whole value chain and i and s, and we were talking about earlier. europe is really up for frontier with that the new battery regulation and demanding and demanding base and a university that sense. you could also say that with ease, this actually more focus on the speakers. cobalt has been used air with the fossil

fuel cars for a long time as well. it's also used in fossil fuel cars is only when we get more environmental li, friendly chorus that we're focusing on it. so in that sense, you could say that and the fact that we are getting even on the road is also helping out helping a whole production. allison, who did you want to jump in there? yes cohort. i also wanted to add a, i think m just as christine said, it's wonderful that we have much more focus on the environmental, you know, sort of the environmental impacts and environmental justice concerns with the electric vehicle and battery value chain in particular. and i want to highlight that, you know, it's easy to start demonizing this one part of the vehicle of this, these challenges of these new supply chains that are forming. but actually this is a great advantage because we are not going to change the fossil fuels value chain just by continuing to drive gasoline vehicles, though we can do better. but we shouldn't allow the challenges of the evie value

chain to prevent us from electrified the others of the group window. uh huh. but i think we won't do better unless we actually see where those challenges are. and christina, you mentioned cobalt comes from other places. i'd like to bring them one of those other places. this is a another voice from someone in our community name stephanie ting, kill her son. and she is a documentary filmmaker listen of so when people buy that shiny new test, i don't think about the cost that is being paid to create that vehicle that is being paid for elsewhere and other parcel world that is not in the western market in the western and closely followed by western media. and so when we want to think about, oh, to miracles, how can we have that in a way that has governmental oversight, corporate responsibility. and that is well, watch and well maintained. when all those being built is that, you know, in this car is going to save the world and that simply isn't too. and there's so much didn't cost that it's being paid for my other people. and, but if in parts of the world like my with,

with stephanie says parts of the world like mine, she's actually talking about indonesia. and that's where a lot of difficult nickel comes from. so here, check this up the app as well to get them up there, there are mines down here, the mud is all over the sea. now, where can we go? how can we survive for the economy for education, the parents to day already struggling? so what can we expect for the next generation, given the current condition of the surrounding environmentally the alamo noticeable? and i any boon? thank you said i couldn't believe all the clove. trees had been cleared. i was shaking. it was our source of income. we were dreaming about sending my child to college. when we went up to find the trees were all gone. i was devastated me. so alyssa seems like there's like an imbalance in the relationship with wealthy countries like the u. s. in norway. great, great examples that need the stuff, but they're getting it from countries as we've mentioned, congo and indonesia. ah. how do you correct that and make sure that

they're doing it in an appropriate way? yeah, that's a, that's a great question. there are so many burdens faced by lower and middle income countries in particular that are providing materials for electric vehicles and potentially taking used vehicles at end of life as well. and so they, they are likely to, to have a disproportionate burden associated with these vehicles and not have the climate in air quality benefits that richer nations are, are benefiting from. i do think there are, there are huge challenges to this, but i'm the work to put together. for example, the battery passports are there can be accountability in the value chain is extremely important. and again, europe is leading the way on that. i also think the consumer demand for o, for materials and for manufacturing practices that are, that are more, it just is also really important as a driver for the industry to do better. and then also to have really, you know,

explicit, convers night conversations, the policies in place. i'm to make sure that we don't have sort of a race to the bottom when it comes to sourcing of materials. but also disposal of batteries. um and, and again, you know, having a holistic approach to policy the way that europe is trying to do with its battery regulation, i think is a really good model and a good start. and places like the u. s. for example, need her need to start thinking about that since we, we haven't really pursued a holistic policy for henry, not just the production of it, but i want to bring in a voice of from the youtube audience. who's watching right now, ma'am? ma'am, ma'am mickey service wire electric vehicle, so expensive, and when will they fix the planet? and part of that, what i'm wondering is, is when will we see these kind of vehicles be affordable enough that the global self will start to buy them? when will you see them driving all over africa? latin america and, and how important is that? yes. our service. our question for me. it was what we needed. yeah. so what we need to do exactly right is make electric vehicles. super cheap. so the markets like

india, se, asia, we mentioned indonesia come kind of for them, and we'll, so let's be honest, western markets as well. and the way to do that is there's another battery technology called lithium on phosphate. the mosque is very big on which has no nickel and no cold all on it on it's cheaper than it has lithium. but the fact is you don't get as much range as batteries with nickel and cobalt. so the question is, you know, can consumers accept a lower range vehicle and governments need to invest in charging infrastructure? so these cheaper vehicles can be charged easily. but this is definitely the route to, to penetrate, you know, market the need cheaper electric vehicles. and also there's just another technology coming out called sodium. i was just uses sodium, right, which is basically table salt. so that's another way to get cheaper electric vehicles. so i know innovation is outside of thing. if

ok, alyssa, go for. i'm so sorry. and so i just 2 things. one, i actually think of that we need to step back from assuming that the world, including wealthy nations, should be electrifying every vehicle on the road. in some work that we did, we found that we could reduce material demand by more than 90 percent, if we pursued transit active mode alternatives to a personal vehicle dependency. and i think that car dependent places wealthy nations like the u. s. should pursue multi product approaches and not electrify everything. i'd also like to add that in globally electrified $2.00 and $3.00 wheelers have displaced more oil than all of the electric vehicles that have been sold all the passenger vehicles. and i say this because electrification is going to look different around the world. and we should, he looking to electrify 2 and 3 wheelers which can deliver great air quality benefits for urban areas as well as electrified buses, which will probably play

a really important role. for example, in electrifying latin america and africa. that's interesting. so this isn't just a one for one replacement from fossil fuel to electric vehicle. you're saying we really need to rethink the entire transportation model. yeah, absolutely. okay, christina, could i just, i, i'm not sure if i'm disagreeing on just one or what. and of course, what we can agree on, i think, is that all new vehicles that enter a roads should be 0 mission at that's. i mean, or else was to keep, you know, pouring new cars or a new vehicles on the road that will be there for many years and pollute. so what we can agree on if we are to sell vehicles, if we are to sell cars, those cars should be able to run on renewable fuels. and that is electric cars. but it, oh, that's gonna be true christina. those cars need to be more affordable for every one of the form in america. they're still kind of a luxury. no,

i think this is also common misconception. who buys new cars? who buys new cars in norway? 8 out of 10 who buy a new car, norway, a buy a car in norway by a 2nd hand car. most people don't buy a new car. those to buy a new car in any country, whether it's indonesia or if it's norway or in the u. s. at least in norway, half of them are, are companies, the other half is people with a certain income. absolutely. and it's the same in poor countries as well. but these people, if they can afford an ice car, you need to make sure they also can afford an e v instead. and that's where green text is coming. you put higher texas on ice course and you allow ease to compete so that people that actually afford new cars can afford a needy that people the way less money in every country will have to wait a few years until these ease are available in the 2nd hand market right now, that is starting to happening, norway, we have

a growing secondhand market for ease because we've been selling these cars force for us some time. we can't we, i don't think that the solution is to make cars to cheap because that doesn't doesn't going to help us. it if they, if they're too cheap, every one will buy it, buy a car. and as alyssa says, we need to to make sure people are also using public transport, walking, cycling, and, and so on. a car shouldn't be too cheap, but even should to compete with ice course. i think ethically your spot on christina, but in the you us, alyssa, do our new taxes, higher taxes done off and go over. what did that with that system work? and in the u. s. you think that could even get that through? no, there is no way that additional taxes on gasoline and diesel vehicles will, will happen in the u. s. i think it will have to be reflective of genuine cost reductions in electric vehicles. i think henry pointed out that and things like lithium iron phosphate batteries that are coming online. and not only do they have

the benefit of of not including nickel and a cobalt which are not only expensive materials but also materials with human rates and environmental issues. and we'll probably reduce the cost of, of electric vehicles and make them cost competitive with a gasoline and ease of vehicles, especially from a total cost of ownership perspective. i think other countries are in the world. i can implement these taxes. in fact, when we have a few examples of lower income countries around the world or middle income countries that rely on 2nd vehicle flows, especially from a europe, japan and the u. s. and some of those countries have implemented exactly the tax regime on in points that christina is highlighted and they had math of adoption. i read recently that mongolia, for example, which favored hybrid electric vehicles and had a fleet of 30 percent hybrid vehicles on the road, much better than what the u. s. has achieved with a tax regime. so i do think christina solution while it's not going to happen in the u. s. is really an excellent solution in many other parts of the world. a mere

seller grew these re multiple solutions, different solutions for different parts of the world, world work. but i think everyone's an agreement that needs to happen. right. dr. luckily, it's true. ellis, acellus assassin. henry says evey's will become cheaper, though. insane. i got a rad mom. right. therapists were out of time. i want to thank all 3 of you, alyssa, christina, and henry for joining us today. and for you, if you're watching on youtube or on out zara english for joining us. and until next time we'll see you then. ah ah. i is not

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