Can We Live Without Owning a Car?

From the invention of the motorised car in the 19th century, consumers have benefited from the increased freedom offered by the car. During the 20th century cars became a globalised commodity and rapidly adopted by households. For the question of whether motor cars are necessary, first the benefits must be assessed. 

By owning one's own car, people are able to add spontaneity to their lives. A quick decision for a day trip for the family does not need to be impeded on whether the trains or buses are working that day. Households are able to experience independence and higher economic opportunities through accessing employers not previously accessible without using their own car. This has enabled higher quality of life than our ancestors experienced. 

But it is not just convenience that cars offer. Cars allow others so see an implicit indication of their status in society. Drive a Lamborghini through any street and it is likely to attract more attention than their Volkswagen brother. One does not even need to see the Lamborghini but hear its turbocharged rumble to instantly register the wealth level that is attached to such a vehicle. Collecting 6-figure motor vehicles has become a staple of the well do to. 

With this growing consumer demand, it is also not surprising that cars make up a large proportion of the UK economy. With over 850,000 people employed in the automotive industry, in 2018 this created 1.5 million passenger vehicles and a turnover of £82 billion. Were individuals to change their habits from owning cars to sharing them instead, they would see a reduced financial burden on themselves and environmental burden on the planet as well. However, this is likely to have a sharp hit on the employment levels in this sector in a period when UK unemployment is increasing.

The Bank of England estimates that as an effect of coronavirus, unemployment will rise to 9% in 2020. This previous high was last experienced in the UK in 1994. Coronavirus has created a challenging environment for many affected sectors. There might not be a desire on the part of consumers to drive an additional industry into turmoil at this moment in time. The awareness of knowingly being responsible for an increase in the unemployment figures might sway decisions made in the present.

Not only is it a challenging environment to be unemployed but the opportunities for retraining could be thwarted in future years. With a warning from 13 universities within the UK already stating that they are likely to need government bailout, the future of adult education is becoming even more uncertain. The 13 universities provide education to 5% of all students studying in the UK. 

The government would also need to consider the effects on tax receipts were individuals to no longer own their own car. Within the UK a tax is levied annually on all motorised vehicles called vehicle excise duty. This is calculated based on the carbon dioxide emitted by the vehicle being taxed and can cost up to £2,175 per vehicle per year. This represents £6.5 billion government income each year. 

With consumer uncertainty about their future in a coronavirus world, is there sufficient appetite to remove one area of guaranteed stability? If the automotive industry were significantly reduced, what can be put in place as an alternative industry? Is the price we currently pay commensurate to the benefits we receive? 

Charlotte Aguilar-Millan

© The European Futures Observatory 2020

The Unfrozen North - Turn 4 (2040)

By 2040, after a period of unduly hot weather, the Polar Ice Cap has retreated northwards at a relatively faster rate than had been seen before. The eastern edge of the ice cap had moved well to the north of Franz Josef Land and Svalbard. On the western edge of the ice cap, the ice had retreated northwards to allow Banks Island to become mainly ice free. The UNESCO World Heritage tentative site in Canadian territorial waters is now ice free all year round.

Canada starts to leverage a number of investments in ocean technologies and digital ocean assets, resulting in relatively high levels of food security and a strengthening of the Canadian Water Exchange. There are calls to strengthen the role of the RCMP in the Beaufort Sea as the incidence of piracy and poaching has increased. 

The US has improved it's water security through the use of technology in conjunction with a pre-existing pipe framework, with the result that water resources are better managed. This leads to a reduction in water abstraction rates from the Great Lakes and the reduction in pollution levels witnessed in the Great Lake Basin and the downstream St Lawrence waterway.

China continues to invest in the commercial transit corridor of the Northern Sea Route. A new satellite network is installed to improve navigation along the route and to allow the commercial exploitation of the Yamal gas field once suitable shipping infrastructure is in place. The satellite network uses Chinese technology from Huawei, but is operated by Russian technicians from the Russian Aerospace Forces. The satellite network has both commercial  and military uses, including navigation, drone control, surveillance, and missile guidance systems.

Russia introduced a new system to legitimise, commercialise, and tax various forms of fishing in it's Arctic territorial waters. The enforcement role is to be undertaken by various elements of the Russian military forces and the commercial aspects are to be given to the Siloviki to operate. This provides Russian business elements a flow of international funds. The new scheme serves to strengthen the position of the Russian government internally.

Russia and Japan enter agree a new joint security framework to reduce the incidence of piracy and poaching in the Sea of Okhotsk. To support this new framework, elements of the Japanese Navy will be stationed at a forward base at Petropavlosk Kamchatskiy on the understanding that they adhere to Russian law.

At the UN, declining fish stocks and biodiversity were recognised as a priority by the European Commission, the US, Canada, and Japan. They are not seen as a priority by China and the view of Russia was not sought.

The European Commission extends the scope of the Horizon Europe funding initiative to academic institutions outside of Europe. Funding is offered to, and accepted, by institutions in Russia and the US. Funding was declined by institutions in China, Canada, and Japan. A better view of the EU is held by the US, but not by China. Japan, Russia, and Canada are ambivalent about the EU.

The government of South Korea lodged a complaint with the European Court of Justice that the European Commission was not abiding by its own tariff regime by imposing an 80% tariff on all fish caught in the Arctic and landed at European ports. The ECJ upheld the complaint and directed the European Commission to start to collect the tariff.

Under European tariff arrangements with the EFTA nations, the 80% tariff has to be imposed and collected on Greenlander, Icelandic, and Norwegian catches landed in their home ports. This has the effect of the increased unpopularity of the EU amongst the European Arctic nations.

A proposal was made to allow the European Union to attain observer status at the Arctic Council. The US and Canada voted for the motion. Russia, Norway, and Iceland voted against the motion, which was not carried.

As a result of the severe drought experience between 2036 and 2040, there has been a substantial movement of people from the southern to northern hemispheres. The main flows of people are northwards from Central America, through Mexico, into North America; northwards from equatorial Africa, northern Africa, and the Middle East, across the Mediterranean into Europe; and northwards from Central and South Asia into China and Russia. The flows of people have overwhelmed the reception facilities in the destination countries and has started to manifest itself as a political issue.

The climate has now started to have an impact on the human condition. Much of the planet is starting to become difficult to live in. This will naturally have an impact upon the Arctic. How much of that will manifest itself by 2045?

Stephen Aguilar-Millan

© The European Futures Observatory 2020

Driving A Car: The Not So Silent Killer?

Our knowledge of health and how to stay healthy is ever evolving. From Florence Nightingale reforming hospital sanitation to Alexander Fleming discovering penicillin, human nature seeks to preserve our own kind. More recently, science has seen developments in health wearables, which includes Bluetooth enabled inhalers to track and control patients suffering from asthma. There have even been advancements in 3-D printing for implants and joints that can be used during surgery.

It is a wonder how car ownership and usage remains fundamental to modern society. A consequence of using current day cars is air pollution. They release harmful substances into our environment. This air pollution accounts for 29% of all deaths from lung cancer as well as 24% of all deaths from strokes. 

It is not only outside of the car that we can see negative effects but inside the consequences are staggering. Where once our ancestors would have to walk or cycle, this has been replaced by a car. Today, households with no access to cars use walking as their method of transport 53% of the time. For those with access to a car, this drops to only 23%. 

As a result of using personal cars as our main form of transport, activity levels within the UK have plummeted. Currently only 47% of children are meeting their physical activity needs. This has resulted in 20% of all children in the UK being classified as obese. The long term effects can be seen in adults today where only 33% of men and 40% of women are a healthy weight. 

The act of driving also effects our health. With more road usage than ever before, it is also then little wonder that roads are congested. This leads many to feel stressed and drained whilst driving. While safety in cars has been ever evolving, the number of car incidents remains at a worryingly high level. Those killed or seriously injured from a road casualty in the UK are almost 30,000 annually. Of this, 44% are individuals inside the car. 

Driving assumes that the users make rational decisions. However, humans exhibit highly irrational behaviour. Being late for work, fear missing your restaurant reservation or even singing to music while driving will affect the way in which drivers process and react to congested roads. This will not change while driving is the primary method of transport in the UK. 

Annually, of all the trips made by households in the UK, 2% were cycling and 27% were walking. However, in 2020 changes have been pledged by the UK government. A total of £2 billion will be spent to provide better facilities for these methods of transport. Perhaps coronavirus has given many households an opportunity to reassess their day to day activities. Will the act of moving from A to B make us focus on the journey rather than the destination? Can we start to consider driving as a luxury rather than a necessity? Will we start to see our own health come before the efficiency of travelling?

Charlotte Aguilar-Millan

© The European Futures Observatory 2020

The Unfrozen North - Turn 3 (2035)

By 2035, the Polar Ice Cap will have retreated beyond Franz Josef Land and Svalbard, above the 80º N latitude on the eastern side of the Arctic Ocean. On the western side, the ice will have retreated within the Beaufort Sea to allow Inuvik to become ice free all year. The Northern Sea Route across the Arctic Ocean has become viable to commercial shipping and the North West Passage is starting to open up.

The port facilities at Prudhoe Bay are now fully operational and the US Coast Guard cutters in the region can now use Prudhoe Bay as their home port. In order to capitalise on the port construction expertise in the region, the US develops deep water port facilities at Nome in Alaska. This will allow the shipping of hydrocarbons from the region, should they be developed, and would act as a trans-Arctic refuelling and supply facility for commercial traffic passing through the Bering Strait. A cruise terminal was also constructed to facilitate Arctic tourism.

Canada sought to add the Beaufort Sea on the UNESCO World Heritage list of tentative sites as a first step to eventual approval. This was intended to protect the environment within the Beaufort Sea and would limit the degree of commercial exploitation of the area. The United States did not agree to this proposal because it would limit any possible commercial development out of Prudhoe Bay, so the site was established only in the Canadian waters of the Beaufort Sea.

The European Commission introduced a new tariff regime whereby a tariff of 80% would be imposed upon goods landed at EU ports that originate in regions that do not adhere to the Arctic Council and United Nations directives on biodiversity and protecting the environment. The Arctic Council was divided in their support for the European action. The US and Canada, backed by Japan, supported the the new regime. Russia, backed by China and South Korea, did not support the imposition of tariffs. The people of Greenland were undecided about it.

Japan sought to expand the Canadian Water Exchange as part of a concerted international action involving the US and Greenland. Japan proposed to allow the use of it's desalinisation technology to further the exchange in a bid to gain greater water security. The proposal failed owing to objections from the Canadian operators of the exchange.

In a weakening of financial sanctions against Russia, Russian individuals and companies were granted full access to the London capital markets in return for ending its involvement with the separatist movements in the Donbas region, compliance with the full extent of financial regulation in London, and by allowing the UK full access to all military establishments to check for the existence of chemical weapons. 

Meanwhile, China developed the Zabaykalsk - Manzhouli trans-shipment facility to ease rail freight between China and Russia. Freight no longer needs to be off-loaded and on-loaded owing to automatic gauge switching, but the extended length of the journey adds three days to shipping cargo by rail between Harbin and Tiksi. The lack of navigational infrastructure in the Arctic region is serving to limit safe passage to vessels the size of 10,000 TEUs or less.

The destination ports for freight originated in Tiksi are Baltimore in the US (whereupon no additional impositions are made), Felixstowe in the UK (whereupon no additional impositions are made), and Europoort in the Netherlands (where upon a tariff of 80% is imposed on goods landed). A triangulated trade route from Tiksi to Felixstowe, and then on to continental Europe has developed to circumvent the imposition of the 80% tariff imposed by the European Commission.

The years 2036 to 2040 will see the northern hemisphere experiencing a severe drought owing to much higher than average temperatures. As a consequence, Canada and Russia will enjoy a relative abundance of water, there will be acute water stress in China and the US, and mild water stress in Japan and Europe if resources are husbanded carefully. There are unusually high water abstraction rates in the Great Lakes Basin by US entities, resulting in a lower water level in the Great Lakes and a higher degree of resultant pollution.

As a result of the drought, there will be severe burn back in the Siberian forests with the consequence that large swathes of land will be cleared for agricultural use. There is also a higher than average failure of the cereal crop in the Canadian Prairie, the US Mid-West, the Eurasian Steppe, and Central China.

As a response to warming seas, fish stocks have moved. In the Pacific, the Bluefin Tuna spawning grounds have moved from the Sea of Japan to the Sea of Okhotsk, and the Pacific Salmon have moved from the Bering Sea to the Laptov Sea, the East Siberian Sea, the Chukchi Sea, and the Beaufort Sea. In the Atlantic, the Cod and Herring moves from the North Atlantic Ocean, the Greenland Sea, and the Norwegian Sea into the Barents Sea.

The fishing fleets of the United States, the European Union, Japan, and China have followed the shoals to fish illegally in these new fisheries, but with state sanction. The Canadian fishing fleet has followed the shoals and are poaching in the new fisheries, but without state sanction.

The climate has started to become an additional factor to take account of in the game. This creates a dilemma. Should the actors focus on climate mitigation? Or should they remain focussed on their objectives in the game? We shall find out when the calendar moves on to 2040.

Stephen Aguilar-Millan

© The European Futures Observatory 2020

Sovietistan - A Review

I have to admit that I rather liked this book. I was looking for a concise briefing on Central Asia, and this book provided it. It is short, to the point, and well observed. Just about everything you can expect from a briefing.

It has also given me some soundbites to capture the flavour of the countries involved. For example, Turkmenistan - it's like North Korea, with oil and gas. Tajikistan - like Turkmenistan, only without the gas and oil. Kyrgyzstan - like Tajikistan, only poorer. Uzbekistan - don't mention Uzbekistan, the worst of the lot. And what about Kazakhstan? A poor man's southern Russia?

The similarities stand out. All of them have autocratic governments. All of them border on being failed states. All of them have high levels of corruption. All of them are riven by tribal factionalism. All of them, to one degree or another, rely upon Russia for their financial viability. All of their governments fear the advance of radical Islam. And none of them have the wherewithal to do anything about it. They are locked into their Soviet past, which is stunting their future.

I was in need of a briefing on these countries for work. I feel that this book told me all that I needed to know. Looking to the future, America is on the retreat in the region and China is on the advance. This region is vital to the BRI, which means that it will receive a good deal of Chinese attention in the near future. Against this is a cross current of two regional powers - Russia and Iran. I feel that much of the story of the 21st Century could be written on the steppes of the Stans.

Stephen Aguilar-Millan

© The European Futures Observatory 2020

What effect has personal car ownership had on the environment?

Owning a car has enabled a vast amount of movement that once would not have been possible. Cars have enabled stronger face to face connections, opportunities to work in more locations and the increased freedom that we all experience.

However, against this benefit there also lay costs. Carbon dioxide levels within the atmosphere are at the highest levels ever recorded. These are the most dangerous and prevalent greenhouse gases. Yet 22% of Great Britain’s carbon dioxide emissions arises from road use alone, with most of this being for non-essential journeys. Over the life of an average car, it will have created 24 tonnes of carbon dioxide.

Cars also significantly contribute to the decline air quality. In 2017, London breached air pollution legal targets just 5 days into the year. Other years have been in a similar vein with 2018 breaching within the first month and 2016 seeing a total of 43 breaches in London alone. Nationally, in 2019, 83% of Great Britain experienced illegal levels of air pollution. Air pollution causes thousands of early deaths each year as a result of the lung and heart disease.

To be able to use these gas emitting machines, a physical infrastructure also needs to be in place. Roads must be built and maintained while parking needs to be available to house all the vehicles. In Great Britain, there are roughly 250,000 miles of road networks and 5,000 parking facilities. Not only does this disrupt natural habitats but also creates an ongoing barrier to the natural movement of wildlife. The goods used in making the roads must be extracted, processed and shipped to where it will be set down. All of which has an environmental impact. 

Technology might not yet have the answer to all of the consequences of car ownership, but it has been successful in creating some alternatives to the traditional model. One way in which car emissions can be reduced is to utilise start-stop technology in petrol and diesel models. When the car is not moving, the engine stops and so do the carbon dioxide emissions.

For a more significant impact in reducing the ongoing environmental effects of cars is the creation and use of electric vehicles. These do not use petrol or diesel to run but instead have a battery installed which can be recharged when these run low. Electric cars can reduce the ongoing environmental impact, but this only provides a palliative rather than a remedy to the effects of personal car ownership. Research has found that an electric car will still generate carbon emissions but at a 30% reduction to the petrol/diesel counterpart. Further, the electricity currently used to recharge the batteries is often taken from non-renewable sources. 

These alternatives also do not address the over reliance on infrastructure development for roads and that currently there are more personally owned cars in the UK than there are drivers. With rising sea levels reducing inhabitable space, do we really want to live in a world where infrastructure keeps pace with the consumer demands for more roads and more parking? Is it imperative that we all have personal machinery at our doorstep to use as and when we desire? Could there be an alternative?

Charlotte Aguilar-Millan

© The European Futures Observatory 2020

The Unfrozen North - Turn 2 (2030)

By 2030, the Polar Ice Cap has retreated further northwards, to completely free Severnaya Zemlya and to partially free Franz Josef Land and Svalbard. Owing to a combination of winds, tides, and currents, the eastern part of the Polar Ice Cap is melting faster than the western half, freeing more of the Arctic Ocean from ice in Russian territory than in Canadian and American territorial waters.

At this point, the Harbin-Yakutsk-Tiksi corridor was fully built out and a deep water port at Tiksi was built and operational. China had provided finance for the completion of the Project 22220 icebreaker programme that allowed Russia to deploy six Arktika Class icebreakers out of Tiksi. China offered funding to local governments in Greenland - but this was refused - and unsuccessfully sought to develop a tourist cruise route in the Arctic Ocean owing to the sparsity of navigational infrastructure.

The Polar Silk Road suffered a further setback at the Heihei - Belogorsk rail corridor, where rail freight passes from China to Russia. The Chinese rail system operates on standard rail gauge (1435 mm) and the Russian rail system operates on the Soviet rail gauge (1520 mm). This means that all rail freight has to be off-loaded at Heihei from Chinese rolling stock and then re-loaded onto Russian rolling stock for onward transportation. 

Japan sought to enhance food and water security through the greater use of desalination technology, a focus on a greater number of salmon hatcheries, and the use of biotech to enhance the rice yields within the country. These measures largely succeeded. Meanwhile, Canada established the Canadian Water Exchange as a vehicle by which water rights were defined and traded. Other nations were sounded out about joining the CWE, but to date, only Canada was a member. The US, on the other hand, saw an uptick in environmentalism, which was directed against 'Big Oil', but which failed to dislodge the vested interests. Some progress was made, but the US Senate remains suspicious about becoming ensnared in foreign entanglements.

The European Commission, through the agency of Denmark, awarded a grant of €1.2 billion in a mixture of cash, development funds, loan guarantees, and public-private partnership deals. This helped to change the opinion of Greenlanders towards the European Commission to a more favourable one. Talk of independence for Greenland fell dramatically.

In other news, the HMM Alliance was introduced into service in 2030. The vessel, built by the Samsung Heavy Industries yard, is the first 30,000 TEU container vessel in the world. It will be transporting cargo between South Korea and California, after modifications to the local docks to accommodate that size of vessel.

This was the situation in 2030. The Polar Silk Road was starting to operate, but needed further infrastructure to develop fully. A new range of larger vessels had come into operation in the Pacific. How would that unfold in the years to 2035?

Stephen Aguilar-Millan

© The European Futures Observatory 2020

Is Car Ownership the Way of the Future?

In Great Britain, there are 32 million personally owned cars but only 31 million drivers. Not only is the number of cars owned increasing, but households pay out over £4,500 annually per car to own and run these. However, these cars will only be in use for 4% of their lives. The remaining 96% of the car’s time will be idle and parked. Over a car’s life, this means that individuals pay £34,500 to not use the car they own. Even finding a place for these cars to stand idle is fast becoming a difficulty in itself. With limited space in cramped metropolitan and residential areas, Great Britain also spends £1.2bn per year in parking fines.

What if the concept of personal car ownership no longer existed? What if for the remaining 96% of a car’s life this is used by a different person? What if car owners only had to pay for the 4% of the car’s life in which they are physically using the vehicle?  

A clear starting point to reducing personal ownership of cars is to look at the alternatives. There are the obvious options of public transport - including buses and trains - but these do not offer the freedom of choice for locality and timing for travel. The emergence of “carpooling” could address this. Traditional car rental companies including Enterprise and Avis now offer options where individuals can rent cars on an hourly as well as daily basis. This takes all hassle out of car ownership - you don’t even have to fuel up at the end. This can keep the enjoyment of driving alive. Enterprise even has agreements with local councils to provide free parking for these vehicles. Carpooling has shown to be a growing area with estimates of 18 million users in 2025. 

However, if consumers want the ease of getting straight from A to B without the responsibility of driving, the development of driverless cars could satisfy this need. nuTonomy, a US tech start-up, launched the first robo-taxi service in Singapore in 2016 with other US based companies keen to develop this technology too including Uber, Telsa, and Lyft.

These assumptions are predicated on consumer habits remaining consistent post 2020. Following covid-19 and the global pause in movement and travel that has been experienced; will the appetite for a culture for constant movement continue? Will reduced car ownership happen naturally as more households work from home as their status quo? 

In either case, let us look at the advantages and disadvantages that a society with no personal car ownership could give rise to. In this 5 part series we will consider the effects on the environment, health, and opportunities for households to repurpose cash spent currently on cars. 

We will also consider what could be done with the additional space if fewer car parks and roads are needed. Finally, we will consider what might be lost with households no longer owning cars to determine what steps ought to be put in place before Great Britain is ready for a car free society.  

Charlotte Aguilar-Millan

© The European Futures Observatory 2020