The shift to electric vehicles in emerging markets - India, China, Southeast Asia and much of Africa - will cut projected growth in global oil demand by 70% by 2030, and the China-led transition will collectively save to the governments of these markets 250 billion dollars a year in fossil fuel imports, money that will be more than enough to finance the infrastructure needed to support electrified transport (annual savings would be over 80 billion in China and over 35 billion in India).
This was revealed by a new report "Nothing to lose but your chains, the leap of transportation on emerging markets" produced by the financial think tank Carbon Tracker which studies the impact of climate change on financial markets.
The study, which thinks about the "end of the oil age", explains that transportation in emerging markets accounts for more than 80% of all expected growth in oil demand through 2030, based on the analysis of the "conservative scenario" "of the International Energy Agency, according to which electric vehicles will account for 40% of sales in China by 2030, and for 20% in India and other emerging markets.
These countries, the study says, are already reducing their dependence on oil and actively supporting electric vehicles as prices move closer to those of petrol and diesel vehicles.
China is a world leader in the distribution of electric vehicles and India is following the same path and as battery prices drop and countries electrify their transportation systems, "they will free themselves from growing dependence on imported oil and put an end to the era. of oil, "explains the Carbon Tracker report.
The cost of importing oil needed to power an average car is 10 times higher than that of the solar equipment needed to power an electric vehicle, the report notes.
India, China, Southeast Asia and much of Africa, the think tank notes, spend huge sums on oil imports every year and two-thirds (68%) are used for transportation.
Oil imports cost 1.5% of Chinese GDP and 2.6% of Indian GDP.
And there are also strong public health reasons to reduce oil use: Road transport-related pollution causes 285,000 deaths per year in emerging oil-importing markets, including 114,000 in China and 74,000 in India, according to the 'International Council on Clean Transportation.
