​It is June 2016, and things seem to be looking up for Argentine President Mauricio Macri. Argentina has just been approved to fill the G20 presidency in 2018. The US presidential race is heating up, but it seems all but certain that Hillary Clinton will win the Democratic nomination and sail to victory in November. Macri is feeling optimistic about advancing his international agenda with a like-minded ally.

While I am far from being a supporter of President Donald Trump, I thought I would like to give a nod to the White House in this post, since they’ve declared this “Energy Week,” with a focus on local and state energy issues. And, with the summer driving season now rolling, what could be more apt than sharing a story about an energy-efficient American car driven by ecologically-minded Americans?

​Recently, my wife and I took the leap and leased a Chevy Bolt, a fully-electric car with no gas motor. It’s not a hybrid, but it does go over 240 miles on a charge. What have we learned?

The waiting is over: President Donald Trump is apparently pulling the United States out of the Paris Agreement on climate change.

The vibe at the recent G-7 summit and media speculation over Memorial Day did not bode well. Trump was sharply estranged from U.S. allies in Europe and privately told some insiders that he was planning to pull out of the United Nations climate change accord signed last November in Paris. On climate change, the G-7 declaration was really a G-6 plus G-1: part of paragraph 32 in the communique was dedicated to the U.S. position on climate change, which was at that point still evolving. This was a strong signal: if Trump was going to rededicate the country to the agreement, then he certainly would have done so while across the Atlantic, to soften some of the tensions on display during their meetings.

A few years ago, we bought a Prius hybrid (Larry), and a diesel Jetta (Timmons). We got great mileage on both, but we couldn’t imagine then how electric vehicles would begin to crack the last tough nut of confronting climate change and cleaning up urban air with genuinely appealing and low-cost options.

For years now, inroads on carbon reduction occurred through the electricity and building sectors, not transport.

Home insulation improved, and coal power plants gave way to natural gas, wind, and solar. But emissions in the transportation sector continued: today, they constitute the biggest source of emissions. And, as nations in Asia and South America develop, the middle class want their cars. Here in the U.S., Americans want their SUVs and trucks.

But as long as cars run on internal combustion engines, we’re falling short on the greenhouse gas emission reductions that we know are required, according to the latest scientific estimates. The venerable Prius will not get us there.

Fortunately, we can ditch gasoline entirely, plug-in our vehicles, and ride our emissions down.

The Trump administration might think that the United States can’t afford to maintain our pledged contribution to climate aid, but what we really can’t afford is to walk back on that commitment. The real costs of retreating from the Paris climate treaty—the geopolitical, humanitarian, and domestic economic costs—far outweigh the relatively small amount of aid that the U.S. has previously agreed to contribute.

Last week, the Obama administration EPA rushed to legally secure rules on required 2025 average gas mileage standards for car and truck manufacturers, while at the same time auto industry lobbyists pushed the Trump transition team to roll back the “flexible” standards put in place under Obama.
 
The lobbyists appear to have a receptive ear in incoming Trump administration, but if these standards are weakened or gutted, the result will be a whole new generation of vehicle-buyers saddled with years of high and unstable fuel costs. And even more tragic, a pivotal opportunity to electrify our nation’s vehicle fleet—and make crucial progress in lowering the risks of climate change—will be lost. Here’s why this is so important, and why two contradictory trends reflect a tipping point for our nation, and why Trump and Pruitt’s actions are so important.

Stalled at 25 MPG while Electrics Soar: A Schizophrenic Industry?

The U.S. auto industry has two starkly contradictory trends going on at the same time. On the one hand, electric vehicles are finally going mainstream, with sales up 37 percent in 2016. The new Chevy Bolt was awarded Car of the Year from Motor Trend with its four-door hatchback getting 238 miles on a single charge.

On the other hand, with gas prices seemingly parked below $2.50 per gallon, the majority of American car buyers have again shifted back toward gas-guzzling models like SUVs and trucks, which at the end of 2016 made up nearly 60 percent of all vehicles sold. As a result, the average miles per gallon in the U.S. when weighted for sales completely stopped increasing in the last three years, stalling at 25.1 mpg.​