April 25, 2024

In the USA, the government has convened a meeting to discuss national standards of freight technology that will reduce carbon emissions.

Specifically:

• supporting the charging infrastructure for heavy-duty vehicles at the megawatt level
• standards for that charging technology
• 30% of medium- and heavy-duty truck sales to be zero-emission models in 2030
• using this investment to reduce air pollution beyond carbon emissions

One of the focuses of the IRA in the USA is to fund heavy-duty charging build-outs, but the lack of a common set of standards is hindering that spending.

The private sector is going to end up driving this process. Amazon has the largest fleet of electric delivery vehicles in the USA.

The threat here is that technology companies are using the transition to install digital surveillance on everything that has a battery in it. If unregulated in its implementation, the massive shift in transport technology will lead to a worsening job environment in this industry.

The setting of standards continues to be the thin edge of the wedge of getting industrial policy into areas it has not been. The government in the USA seems to understand this and has been calling for more of these standards setting panels recently. The recommendations always bleed into other areas of necessary investment to make the standards work.

The UN has released its most recent "GEO" report. The discussions right now are on incorporating Indigenous knowledge and values into the global environmental treaties. Specifically, uniting those values and knowledge with the science of renewing energy, food, and waste systems.

The issue continues to be the implementation of current technologies to solve these problems instead of over-spending on trying find ("innovate") magical solutions to the predicted problems after they have appeared.

The focus right now has been on plastics discussions happening in Ottawa. The discussions have been disrupted by the oil and gas companies trying to water-down the commitments to reduce plastic production and consumption.

Everywhere we look in these discussions, capital's interests of short-term profit maximization are undermining movement on adoption of sensible investment programs.

Sociopathic, future destroying entrenched interests is on full display at these talks. It is too bad that they are so boring to watch that no one really notices.