François Bausch Warns against Simply Replacing Thermic with Electric Mobility at Transforming Transportation Conference

During his working visit to the United States last week, Luxembourg’s Deputy Prime Minister, Minister of Mobility and Public Works and of Defence, François Bausch, participated in the annual conference "Transforming Transportation", held on 16 and 17 January 2020 in Washington.

Organised annually by the World Bank and the World Resources Institute, the conference centred this year around the theme “Connecting People for Sustainable Growth”. On this occasion, François Bausch, in his role as Minister of Mobility, participated as a speaker in a round table on the impact of the transportation sector on climate change.

With emissions from transport making up 14% of global emissions, the World Resources Institute recommended three imperatives to achieve the decarbonisation of transport: electrification, a new urban design and cleaner, more efficient road, air and sea freight.

Regarding electrification, two observations were made: renewable energy is becoming less and less expensive and the cost of batteries has fallen by 80% since 2010. The urban fabric, meanwhile, needs to be rethought with public space being reallocated to pedestrians and bicycles. Finally, the conference emphasised the need to make road, sea and air transport cleaner and more efficient by consolidating and using renewable energy.

Minister Bausch stated: “We have to attack the global system. There is not a silver bullet solution. We have to analyse the whole system. If we limit ourselves to replacing thermal energy with electrical energy, we will end up in an electrical traffic jam".

He added: “We have to change our rifle. We have to move people, not cars. If we widen the roads, we widen the traffic jams. The solution is multimodality, therefore the promotion and combination of ALL means of transport”.