By Darrell Clarke, Volunteer Co-Lead for Sierra Club's Healthy Communities and Transportation Committee
What’s the Sierra Club doing about climate-disrupting emissions from transportation? They are now the largest greenhouse gas sector as electricity has gotten cleaner: 29 percent nationally and a huge 41 percent in California.
Sierra Club’s strategic goals include reducing oil use 50% by 2030 and 100% clean energy in all sectors by 2050.
About half of U.S. oil is used for gasoline, another quarter for diesel, and a tenth for jet fuel.
Our main actions to end oil use are (1) Driving less and (2) Electrifying vehicles as fast as possible for remaining trips (while concurrently cleaning the electric grid).
People in denser mixed-use communities with good transit, biking, and walking drive up two-thirds less than typical auto-oriented suburbia. Pricing and other Transportation Demand Management incentives are other ways we can drive less in the near-term.
Complementing the Sierra Club national Clean Transportation for All campaign’s focus on greenhouse gas and fuel efficiency standards and electric vehicles, our Healthy Communities and Transportation volunteer team focuses on helping Chapters do inherently local campaigns for infill development, transit, biking, and walking.
For more information or help on your local campaigns, please see our webpage and Solution overview, join the Transportation Chairs listserv (you don’t have to be a chair), or contact me at darrclarke@gmail.com.