Why electric cars, tougher CO2 goals will help Europe to undermine Putin

As the gruesome war unfolds in Ukraine, my heart goes out to all the victims of Putin’s assault. As a Latvian citizen who is ethnically half-Russian, I also feel for those Russians who are vehemently opposing the war.

Like many other people I am now asking myself what can I do to help?

While some have taken up arms and joined the Ukrainian resistance and others are opening their homes to refugees, there is something that we can all do to weaken Putin’s very ability to wage war. We can cut the quarter of a billion dollars that we send him daily for oil and the simplest way to do this is through our driving habits.

Cars consume around a third of all oil imports Europe gets from Russia. The gasoline and diesel cars we drive consumed $78 billion of oil in 2021, $19 billion of which went directly to Russia.

So, to undermine Putin’s war, Europeans can act now by decreasing unnecessary car use to reduce oil demand.

This should be primarily about efficiency and not targeting those who need their vehicles to go about their daily lives. But those drivers who use gas guzzling SUVs to make a 15-minute journey to the supermarket, should ask themselves if that is really necessary

Additionally, greater emphasis should be placed on other fuel-saving measures such as homeworking, speed limits and also increasing the efficiency of freight operations that utilize fuller trucks on more optimal routes.

Beyond the immediate solution of reducing unnecessary journeys, there are wider structural solutions available for Europe that could help it reduce its demand for oil, not only from Russia, but also from other undemocratic or unstable regimes such as Saudi Arabia or Iran.

One such solution is obviously electric cars, which use no oil. But governments that rely most on Russia’s oil imports, and have a strong car industry, notably Germany, are not doing enough to promote them.

EVs are gaining traction and Europeans bought over a million of them in 2021, or 10 percent of all car sales. Corporate fleets and company cars – which account for most of Europe’s sales -- and the majority of kilometers driven -- could shift to full-electric today.

But, while Belgium plans to limit tax breaks only to electric company cars by 2026, Germany, France and are not following suit and are continuing to subsidize oil demand.

Another problem lies in the EU’s outdated CO2 targets governing cars produced and sold in Europe. This is currently up for review but the Commission is not proposing a tightening of the rules before 2030. This will have the effect of stagnating the electrification boom for the rest of the decade.

The wider European decisions on how fast we will move away from oil is being decided now by 27 EU governments and the European Parliament.

If we stick with the proposals from the EU’s Commission, we will still be importing 250 million barrels of oil from Russia at the end of this decade and, in doing so, writing Putin a cheque for $30 billion every year.

This could be cut to $12 billion if we were to accept proposals from the parliament’s lead MEP Jan Huitema, who has demanded a 75 percent cut in CO2 emissions from cars by 2030.

If we additionally require that half of all new-car sales should be EVs by 2025, as dozens of NGOs EU-wide are now demanding, the savings jump to more than $4 billion by 2025, reducing the demand for Russian oil by 33 million barrels.

Setting tougher car CO2 goals in 2025 and beyond is achievable in Europe, not just to stop subsidizing Putin's war, but also to ensure the region’s energy independence.

Electric cars are our secret weapon to achieving this, so let us stock up.