L.A. Has An Olympic-Size Plan To Cut CO2 And Supercharge EV Use Ahead Of 2028 Games

Los Angeles is defined by cars and traffic, but passenger vehicles and trucks are also its top source of climate-warming carbon emissions. To get them under control, the city is launching an initiative seeking a 25% cut in greenhouse gas reduction ahead of hosting the 2028 Olympic Games, lining up help from Nissan, Tesla, BMW, Audi, electric-bus makers Proterra and BYD, and public and private utilities. 

Under Mayor Eric Garcetti, the city, surrounding communities, companies and other entities are part of a Transportation Electrification Partnership with specific goals for the next nine years, laid out as the Zero Emissions 2028 Roadmap. Targets include 30% of L.A.-area personal passenger vehicles on the road (and 80% of new vehicles sold) being electric and ensuring that 40% of commercial truck trips, particularly those from the sprawling ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach, are exhaust-free. Electric fueling infrastructure is key to hitting those goals, so the plan includes installing 84,000 public chargers and up to 95,000 for fleets and goods movement. 

“We can’t turn the tide on the climate crisis until we work across sectors and city limits to put the brakes on dangerous pollution and kick our zero-emissions transportation future into high gear,” Garcetti said in a statement. The public-private partnership “charts a course toward a healthier region with a cleaner transit network—and draws up a blueprint for cities worldwide to follow, so all of us can invest in the smart policies and green energy that will strengthen our families’ well-being and quality of life for generations to come.” 

The Los Angeles region is already among the biggest markets for electric vehicles in the U.S. but would grow dramatically larger if the program’s goals are hit. State and local incentives for purchases of EVs will help, and more ubiquitous charging infrastructure might be even more consequential. The initiative, spelling out more specific details than an early version of the Roadmap announced in 2018, comes the same day the United Nations released a report on the lack of significant action by countries to slow the buildup of dangerous greenhouse gases. 

At the federal level, President Donald Trump has reversed course on government efforts to slow that increase, moving to pull the country out of the U.N.’s Paris climate agreement, rolling back Obama-era fuel economy rules designed to cut automotive CO2 and promoting increased domestic drilling, fracking and mining of carbon-based energy, key sources of greenhouse gas emissions. However, Los Angeles, the state of California and more than 3,000 other U.S. cities, states, companies, universities and organizations are still pushing ahead with the goals of the Paris agreement. The California Air Resources Board is also locked in a legal fight with Trump’s Environmental Protection Agency over its congressionally mandated authority to set clean air rules that exceed national standards. 

The electric vehicle push in Los Angeles, along with scores of new battery and hydrogen fuel cell cars and trucks coming to market, signals that manufacturers are moving in the right direction, regardless of the current federal direction, says long-time Air Resources Board Chair Mary Nichols. 

“Those who want to still be around for another generation are planning their moves very carefully. They’re looking at technologies and they’re looking at partnerships and they’re looking at whole new lines of business,” she tells Forbes. “So it’s a really exciting time, but also very uncertain.”

So far the L.A. initiative has 25 partners and counting, says Matt Petersen, president and CEO of the Los Angeles Cleantech Incubator, or LACI, which is coordinating it. 

“We’ve got every segment of the economy and public and government sector to really make these goals possible,” he said at a recent briefing about the Roadmap. “While we know we’ve made tremendous progress in air quality in southern California, we have a long way to go. Transportation, and goods movement, in particular, is the largest source of air pollution and climate change.”