[hashin]

An alternate line of thought - do we need Electric vehicles to do all that? If we could reliably transition mass of passenger transport and daily commute options to electricity, that alone could crack the deal. We needn't eliminate fossil fuel driven systems completely. It can still have some use cases, which on a planet scale could be made viable through a select oil extraction infrastructure across the globe. A scaled down fossil fuel economy with electric replacing mass of private and commercial vehicle use looks like the most likely scenario for the future, imho.

[qeternity]

Absolutely the approach that is needed: net zero, not zero. We cannot completely decarbonize the long tail of fossil fuel uses - but we can create a mostly renewable energy mix. It is unlikely that air and space travel for instance will ever be decarbonized - but net emissions can be reduced or eliminated. The same goes for manufacturing processes and materials science. It's not an all or nothing proposition.

[throwaway0a5e]

I think fossil fuels are enough of an ideological rallying point that they're going to be targeted no matter how niche and justified their use is (see also: asbestos). We're likely to wind up with plat based synthetic fuels in those use cases to make the ideologues happy (see also: Brazil, though they use synthetic fuels for a different reason) even if that's not the best/cheapest way to make those use cases net zero.

[nicoburns]

> even if that's not the best/cheapest way to make those use cases net zero

It's likely to be for the foreseeable future given that net zero otherwise requires carbon capture equal to the extracted fossil fuels, and we seem to be some way off effective carbon capture let alone cost effective carbon capture.

[r00fus]

Keep in mind that 10% of the worlds carbon emissions is tarmac/roads. Not building, just them being around.

So mass transit does more lift than EVs in terms of carbon neutrality. Not to mention noise pollution and tire particulates causing asthma.