As western nations look to “transition” away from fossil fuels, the World Economic Forum (WEF) says reducing ownership of private vehicles is necessary to limit the world’s reliance on critical metals.
“This transition from fossil fuels to renewables will need large supplies of critical metals such as cobalt, lithium, nickel, to name a few,” the international organization said in a report in July.
“Shortages of these critical minerals could raise the costs of clean energy technologies.”
As first reported by Fox News, the WEF is urging consumers to carpool instead of owning their own vehicles. The global organization believes vehicle sharing will be vital in reducing the number of cars needed globally.
“More sharing can reduce ownership of idle equipment and thus material usage,” the WEF argued. In its report, they point to how the average vehicle in England is driven “just 4% of the time.”
Critical metals are used in a variety of “green” technologies, including electric vehicles, wind turbines and efficient lighting.
This isn’t the first time the WEF has proposed a radical solution to combat climate change.
In May, during the WEF’s annual meeting in Davos, Alibaba Group president J. Michael Evans boasted about the development of an “individual carbon footprint tracker” to monitor what you buy, what you eat and where and how you travel.
While there has been little discussion about reducing car ownership in Canada, there has been a huge push by the Trudeau government for Canadians to use electric vehicles.
In December, Environment Minister Steven Guilbeault said he wanted to enforce a national mandate which would force auto dealers to sell a specific number of electric vehicles. Guilbeault said he wants to enforce this mandate by the end of 2022 or early 2023.
In its climate plan, the government outlined a plan to ensure that 50% of all new passenger cars sold in Canada will be “zero-emission” by 2030, and 100% by 2035.
Despite the push for electric vehicles, it was revealed in November that Guilbeault racked up over 21,000 km on his government vehicle between January and August 2021, an average of 3,000 kilometres of driving.
