“Does everyone have to have a car?”
Professor Jan Willem Erisman is the government’s new most important climate adviser. He has serious doubts about the future of car ownership in our country. According to him, alternatives should be looked at, especially in the Randstad.
Electric driving is still described as a way to bring the car into the future, but is there still a future for car ownership as we know it today? According to ‘nitrogen professor’ Jan Willem Erisman, now chairman of the new Scientific Climate Council that assists the outgoing government, car ownership should be examined. According to him, the fact that electric driving is getting bigger and bigger will not change that. Talking to it AD he explains: “Because electric driving is now being stimulated, it seems that we assume that soon everyone will drive an electric car. But the question is whether this is even possible in the long term, with the limited raw materials and critical materials available. .”
Erisman says that we need to look at the future of mobility and the role of the car in it. A role that he actually only sees shrinking at the bottom of the line: “The question about car ownership should be traced back to something else: how do we see the future transport infrastructure in the Netherlands? Should everyone have a car or should public transport be strengthened and should “Do we do it everywhere or not? We have to investigate those options. Maybe we need to move towards a completely different way of mobility, where you have much more shared and public transport in the Randstad.”
According to the scientist, there may still be a clear role for the car outside the Randstad, but we may have to get rid of the one-on-one replacement of the current fleet with an electric fleet. “More electric cars in the line of today, that is the same thinking. A completely new transport system, which is much more suitable and reduces emissions much more, is only a real transition.” Erisman is well aware that the idea of reducing car ownership may be off-putting to many people. He emphasizes that people ‘don’t have to hand in their car tomorrow’ and that it is up to governments to present citizens with good alternatives. “As the Climate Council, we can help policymakers with behavioral scientists, for example.”
– Thanks for information from Autoweek.nl