By 2050, all cars in Los Angeles, the most populous city in the US State of California and the second most populous city in the whole of the United States would be powered by electricity. This forms the target set by the Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti in response to the threat of climate change, in a city that has more than four million inhabitants. He has just launched the city’s own version of the Green New Deal, which lists goals of a zero carbon grid, zero carbon transportation, zero carbon buildings, zero waste, and zero wasted water by 2050.
Key Highlights of the Deal
The Los Angeles’ Green New Deal’s ambition include plans to:
- Increase electric vehicles in the city to 25% by 2025; 80% by 2035; 100% by 2050
- Convert all city fleet vehicles to zero emission where technically feasible by 2028
- Install 400 Electric Vehicle (EV) chargers at City buildings and parks and all libraries and install 500 additional streetlight EV chargers.
- By 2021, Ensure that 100% of the City’s new light duty purchases are electric and Meals on Wheels new program vehicles are electric.
- Ensure that 100% of medium duty trash and recycling trucks are zero emission by 2028
- Distribute 1,000 used electric vehicle (EV) rebates, 11,500 Level 2 EV charger rebates, and 75 DC fast charger rebates,
- Install 10,000 publicly available EV chargers by 2022 and 28,000 by 2028
- Build 20 Fast Charging Plazas throughout the city
- Electrify 10% of taxi fleet by 2022; and 100% by 2028
- Target 100% Zero Emission school buses in Los Angeles 2028
- Target 100% of urban delivery vehicles are zero emission 2034
- Electrify 100% of Metro and LADOT buses by 2030.
The new deal also hopes public transit play a role in reducing pollution and congestion. To this effect, the deal will introduce expanded services and new routes that aim to increase ridership by 90% and add 112 electric buses to the DASH fleet to improve connections between regional bus and rail services. To get cars off the road, the city will conduct a congestion pricing pilot program in 2025.
More Jobs For Renewable Energy Experts
Mayor Garcetti also introduced a Jobs Cabinet that will help fill an estimated 400,000 positions expected to be created by 2050 in the transition to renewable energy and carbon neutrality, including installing solar panels and constructing energy-efficient homes. Growing the publicly available EV charging infrastructure in L.A. alone is expected to support 1,500 jobs by 2025.
Mayor Eric Garcetti said in a press release:
“Four years ago, I introduced L.A.’s first Sustainable City pLAn — …We became the number-one solar city in America, pioneered new transportation technologies, reduced our greenhouse gas emissions by 11% in a single year, and created more than 35,000 green jobs. But we have simultaneously seen the dramatic effects of a warming planet in our communities — from oppressive heat waves that endanger our health, to drought and wildfires that have swept across Southern California. It’s time to think bigger. The scale of our ambitions must meet the magnitude of this crisis. .”
But Who Really Funds The Project?
Why details of ways to fund the project are missing in the plan, automotive technology expert, Liane Yvkoff says the City will need help of the community and private sector to execute this strategy.
‘They have partners with several organizations, such as Liberty Hill Foundation, which may offer significant rebates (potentially up to $14,000) to individuals or families to purchase new or used electric vehicles, and are working with URB-E to replace gasoline-powered delivery vehicles with a foldable electric scooter for some last-mile goods delivery with zero emissions,’’ she wrote.
The Deal is a follow up from the 2015 Sustainable City Plan. What the latest edition did was to raise the bar with goals of recycling 100 percent of Los Angeles’ wastewater and zeroing out carbon emissions generated by buildings, transportation, electricity, and trash, with a heavy focus on mobility, public transit, zero emissions vehicles.
Charles Rapulu Udoh
Charles Rapulu Udoh a Lagos-based Lawyer with special focus on Business Law, Intellectual Property Rights, Entertainment and Technology Law. He is also an award-winning writer. Working for notable organisations so far has exposed him to some of industry best practices in business, finance strategies, law, dispute resolution and data analytics both in Nigeria and across the world.