On January 10th, 2008 Tata Motors, India’s largest automobile maker, unveiled its newest (and the world’s cheapest) car – the Tata Nano. The world media was all over the event, some termed this a milestone of consequence equivalent to the rolling out of the Ford Model-T or the Volkswagen Beetle. For Indian enterprise and industry this was a proud moment, a giant leap forward. For the global environment, though, it was probably a not-so-small step back. The timing was ironic. 2007 was a year of unprecedented center-staging for the environmental movement. It was book-ended by an Oscar and a Nobel for Al Gore. Coalitions of States defied Washington, on issues pertaining to climate change. It was the year when George Bush, finally, stopped denying the reality of global-warming (although his administration and allies continue to bedevil states-level action through judicial challenges and question the science). Closer home, Mayor Bloomberg came out with a plan for a “greener, greater NY” and took iconic (albeit substantially slight) steps like ordering the city taxi fleet to go hybrid. The United Nations brought together eleven thousand people (including a reluctant US delegation) in Bali, to map a way forward to stave off global warming. While the particulars of that roadmap are still being worked out; broadly, the group decided to strategize for “adaptation” (what do we do as the sea-waters rise); decided to make the transfer and proliferation of “green” technologies easier and deforestation harder; and promised to figure out financing mechanisms to make these things work.
In all this, though, there was very little mention of the one technology, tested and ready, with little or no requirement of fancy transfer protocols and, with best track record for reducing the carbon footprint of society – mass transit. That transportation choices have a huge impact on the carbon footprint of society seemed to get lost in the noise.
According to World Resources Institute, the average energy consumption (per capita per annum) of the United States in 2003 was about 7800 Kilograms of Oil Equivalent (KGOE), the highest of any country. This number represents all energy consumption (industrial plus residential plus commercial etc.), divided by the population. The average American, it turns out, consumes about twice the amount of energy as the average EU resident or the average Japanese; seven times that of the average Chinese and about sixteen times that of the average Indian. Of the biggest states, NY consumes about 220 million BTUs per capita (both KGOE and BTU are units of energy. 1 KGOE is about 40000 BTU; as with many things US employs units that vary from global standards), the second lowest consumption of all states. California, consumes a surprisingly low 233 MBTU. Given a national average of about 350 MBTU (7800 KGOE), clearly, there must be states that consume a lot more. The third big state - Texas, begins to tell that story. The average Texan, at 550 MBTU, consumes two and half times the energy consumed by the New Yorker or Californian and about six-seven times that consumed by a resident of New York City or San Francisco. This dramatic difference is not due to heating or cooling as one may initially think (although, urban buildings are remarkably more efficient), but the difference is fuelled, largely, by the average Texan’s greater dependence on the automobile. While California has the Bay Area and New York State has the City, metropolitan regions where substantial sections of the population undertake travel by public transportation (or by bicycles or on foot), Texans are almost exclusively dependent on cars, trucks and SUVs. The situation in Texas is not unique or the most egregious. Several states have per capita energy consumption of close to or more than one thousand MBTU.
Despite the presence of such hard evidence, mass-transit, an obvious ally of climate-stabilization, is under siege. The siege is long-standing in America, where there is a history of systematic reduction of resources for transit in favor of the carbon-generating internal-combustion based automobile, automobile based highways and highway based sprawl. More recently, and much more scarily, the siege is being laid again - in China and in India These two looming storm-clouds on the environmental horizon, are in the midst of massive highway construction programs that are likely to repeat the American post-war suburbanization. Their governments (and Tata Motors) are not alone in their embrace of auto-based development. On the heels of the Tata launch, Bajaj Auto (another homegrown Indian auto maker), Ford, Suzuki and others have announced ambitious India-based “cheap car” development initiatives. All of these companies see India, China, large parts of Africa, Asia and South America as the market. These efforts will, surely, place cars within the reach of a geometrically larger segment of consumers. Consumers, who have been prepared by billboards, print, television soaps (and by Bollywood); are ripe and ready to buy into the suburban dream. This framed picture of paradise has a nuclear family, a detached suburban home and a shiny car. Sprawl is coming to far-away Mumbai and it is likely to raise the sea around Manhattan.
While discussions about technology-transfer protocols and re-forestation are entirely appropriate, not enough discussion is happening about weaning tens of millions of addicts away from their carbon consumptive cars; and pre-empting hundreds of millions of aspiring addicts. The right questions are: How do we break the automatic mental linkage between development and the automobile? How do we offer a sustainable alternative based upon mass-transit? How do we restore landscapes and ecologies scarred by sprawl and rebuild communities, based upon densification and the introduction of heavy-rail, light-rail, bus-rapid transit and the like? How do we ensure that people can commute back and forth from work / school, so they can go out to meet friends, socialize or even buy milk, without having to drive their cars?
The answer, of course, requires the strengthening mass-transit systems, putting them in front of decision-makers and ensuring that there are resources available to make these, initial-investment hungry ventures, a reality. People will have to be assured that by expanding mass-transit, jobs will be created and economic activity generated. Coalitions will have to be built and care will have to be taken not create powerful enemies – such as the automobile makers. In fact, the magic may well lie in reducing driving but not necessarily, the presence of the automobile. The Japanese, for instance, have high levels of car-ownership and yet do not drive as many miles as the Americans. This Japanese model may be a good compromise between rising tide of Chinese / Indian aspirations on the one hand, and reduction of carbon output of the world on the other. In this compromise, the car is present for family pictures and the trip to grandma’s, but the daily commute starts with walk to the station and culminates in a ride on a safe, punctual and comfortable train, where all sections of society rub shoulders and, like town squares of old, share a truly public domain. Hopefully, the environmental community’s new-year resolution will be to give mass-transit the elusive top billing that it deserves. In fact, wouldn’t it be wonderful, if Al Gore’s next movie were “A Convenient Ride”?
