1y ago

SUVs made up 20% of global emissions growth and 55% of car sales globally in 2023

This is just insane. Not only are cars themself mostly unnecessary, if the right infrastructure is provided, but SUVs also use more resources to run and be produced then small cars, without any advantage over them. So an obvious waste, which could easily be cut to reduce emissions.

Source IEA: https://www.iea.org/commentaries/suvs-are-setting-new-sales-records-each-year-and-so-are-their-emissions

33 comments

Forgive me if I'm misunderstanding this but weren't the SUVs already calculated in the countries' bars? Of course something globally combined that burns fuel is going to be significant. I imagine sedans and coupes wouldn't be very far behind. This smacks of a "Statistically, everyone has one testicle" type of thing.
Are we just picking out things that we can add to the graph? Like, can I choose farts or barbques?
- Can we show the emissions from industries like plastics?
- Agreed. I'd love to also see how this was calculated, but the graph doesn't make me want to click on the link tbh.
  My (and hopefully most other's too) hatred for SUV's is already maxxed out anyway.
  *Edit: ok, my curiosity won and I clicked it and saw that it was done by IEA... Literally one of my favourite organisations that don't tend to come up with junk data or conclusions. It's a good read.
- Good point. I wonder how big of a bar "meat production" would be. If you include shipping and all other ways it contributes to emissions I wouldn't be surprised if it outweighs consumer vehicles.
  
  That would be my uneducated guess as well. Taking everything like processing, shipping, storing, growing the feed and all it requires into account for meat production, I would be shocked if it weren't higher than passenger vehicles combined.
- Say you remove SUVs from the other countries' calculations. That would make SUVs look even worse.
  
  Or perhaps you begin arbitrarily counting other things twice in your calculations. Then they look better.
  My point isn't that item X doesn't pollute, just that the graph in question is less useful in it's nature and aimed at being alarmist.
- That's kind of the point. People naturally imagine that there are much greater contributions and that there's no way a minor choice like an SUV over a compact has major consequences. But this graph does demonstrate that such a decision matters.
- You could combine all motorsports into one bar and it still wouldn't register
- If we're naming modes of transportation that pollute, it would be remiss not to point out the worst one: ships.
  
  On the contrary: ships are the third-best one when you consider greenhouse gas emissions per ton-kilometer of cargo moved, which is the metric that matters. They only pollute a lot as a category because there is so much fucking shipping going on. (Reducing that is also an issue, but one for a different thread.)
  The only things better are bicycles and sailboats (because they use no fossil fuels at all). Even trains are less efficient, although in the long run they have the advantage of being possible to electrify and run on renewables.
  Granted, the other pollution (not greenhouse gas) from ships is terrible because they use the cheapest, nastiest fuel. But as bad as that is, it's still a much, much lower-priority concern than climate change.
  (TBH, what we really need are nuclear cargo ships.)
- I don't understand your logic. Say SUV's were on average 50 % worse emitters than regular cars. Now when picking a car you face the choice of emitting 1 unit or 1.5 units of emissions, for basically the same service. If we look around, these kinds of choices are everywhere. Transportation, food, housing, electric power. Often the difference is even bigger than 50 %. Being consistent in choosing/forcing/promoting the better alternative results in a HUGE difference. Of course, if you look at one decision, it's not decisive. But transportation and cars definitely are a major factor.
Now do it with container ships
- Bunker fuel burns clean I swear!
SUVs also use more resources to run and be produced *than small cars, without any advantage over them.
Says someone who has never needed to haul cargo to and some a venue before.
Other than hauling an actual SUV full of cargo, I agree it's mostly a waste.
Edit: lol, down votes and ghosting even though an advantage was given. Good job Lemmy, you're acting just like the redditors.
- I would argue an SUV sucks even for that purpose. And SUV has less cargo space than even a minivan, and is typically less fuel efficient. In general, the majority of SUVs fail to live up to the Sport or Utility functions of their name. They're just a grossly inefficient oversized sedan.
  As an example, I just moved someone out of a dorm yesterday and ended up having to haul a sizeable portion of my daughter's roommate's belongings in my van on top of my daughter's stuff because her roommate's SUV couldn't do the job. And my daughter has more stuff. And from the conversation we had, my van gets 5mpg more than her Ford Edge.
  
  I don't disagree with you there, but my intention wasn't to compare SUVs/CUVs to other cargo carrying vehicles so much as to point out that sedans and coupes are not nearly as well suited to hauling gear/equipment/boxes.
  I am curious which minivan you have, I'm considering getting back into my moonlighting gig and having options for a more fuel efficient vehicle would be good to keep in mind.
- Both your comment and edit were snarky. Let's just be nice.
  
  Downvoting and ghosting someone who is giving valid information based on being the first to arrive and the very last to leave for dozens of shows often times getting home around 6am or 10am in the morning the next day is pretty dickish.
  I'm not forcing anyone to like what I'm saying, I simply ask that the experiences being acknowledged for what they are which only one or two people seem to be doing.
This is just insane
https://www.theguardian.com/world/article/2024/may/07/un-expert-human-rights-climate-crisis-economy
Outgoing special rapporteur David Boyd says ‘there’s something wrong with our brains that we can’t understand how grave this is’

33 comments