The Ohio legislature, dominated by a Tea Party-controlled Republican supermajority, often seems to be creating more problems than it solves. And it could be creating a problem with international ramifications. In its lame duck session, the chamber passed HB 490 last week, a water quality bill which alters standards for withdrawing water from Lake Erie and its tributaries, and sent it to the state Senate, where it's expected to pass.
The omnibus bill contains some good things, such as new restrictions on use of fertilizers on farmland, one of the causes of last summer's algae bloom in Lake Erie that shut off the water supply to nearly 400,000 people in the Toledo area. But there's a lot of dissent about its new rules for the withdrawal of Lake Erie water by industrial and other heavy users. And when there's disagreement about the impact of something this legislature is doing, it's wise to be wary especially when the fairly conservative Cleveland Plain Dealer calls it "a last-minute, larded-up mid-biennium agricultural bill" with "an industry-driven, water-withdrawal amendment that could condemn Lake Erie to death by a thousand straws."
Among other things, the new language would consider only the impact of withdrawals on water level and not on wildlife or pollutant levels, potentially violating the 2008 Great Lakes Compact between the eight Great Lakes states and the international Great Lakes St. Lawrence River Basin Water Resources Compact with Ontario and Quebec. Joel Brammeier, president and CEO of the nonprofit environmental group Alliance for the Great Lakes, told the Plain Dealer that if Ohio starts picking and choosing which parts of the compact it wants to follow other states might do the same.
"The risk to the Great Lakes is that we go back and start rehashing more than a decade of work that started in 1998 because Ohio has chosen to renege (on) part of the compact," he told the paper. "That's not a good use of anybody's time."
The Ohio Environmental Council (OEC) says,"OEC strongly opposes the new amendment to the Great Lakes St. Lawrence River Basin Water Resources Compact. We believe the amendment violates the letter and spirit of the Great Lakes Compact and leaves Ohio vulnerable to litigation, poses risks to water quantity and the wildlife of Lake Erie, and will harm the public's and sportsmen's enjoyment of Lake Erie and wildlife."
OEC pointed out that Governor John Kasich vetoed a similar provision in 2011, saying "Ohio’s legislation lacks clear standards for conservation and withdrawals and does not allow for sufficient evaluation and monitoring of withdrawals or usage."
As the Akron Beacon Journal put it in an editorial, Don't Break the Compact, the "misguided language has resurfaced."
The paper expressed the hope that the governor will remove that language when the rushed bill lands on his desk, although it's hard to guess what Kasich, reelected in a landslide to his second and final term and rumored to be harboring presidential aspirations, will do. State representative Teresa Fedor, a Democrat from Toledo, attempted to remove language in the House but that was voted down. Republican Lynn Wachtmann from nearly Napoleon, Ohio, who runs a bottled water company, pooh-poohed objections, telling the Toledo Blade, "Since we passed the original Great Lakes bill, I don’t believe there’s been a single permit issued by (the Department of Natural Resources) to withdraw additional water from any watershed that I’m aware of. So any reference that this bill or something else previous is any cause of algae bloom is nothing less that ridiculous. The water issue in Toledo has zero to do with this issue.”
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"Now that we are spending more time at home, we are noticing the large number of delivery vans and lorries driving through cities," said Netherlands environment minister Stientje van Veldhoven, announcing plans to ban all but zero-emission deliveries in 14 cities.
"The agreements we are setting down will ensure that it will be a matter of course that within a few years, supermarket shelves will be stocked, waste will be collected, and packages will arrive on time, yet without any exhaust fumes and CO2 emissions," she added.
She expects 30 cities to announce zero emission urban logistics by this summer. City councils must give four years' notice before imposing bans as part of government plans for emission-free road traffic by 2050. The city bans aim to save 1 megaton of CO2 each year by 2030.
Help to Change
To encourage transport organizations to go carbon-free, the government is offering grants of more than US$5,900 to help businesses buy or lease electric vehicles. There will be additional measures to help small businesses make the change.
The Netherlands claims it is the first country in the world to give its cities the freedom to implement zero-emission zones. Amsterdam, Rotterdam and Utrecht already have "milieuzones" where some types of vehicles are banned.
Tilburg, one of the first wave of cities imposing the Dutch ban, will not allow fossil-fuelled vehicles on streets within its outer ring road and plans to roll out a network of city-wide electric vehicle charging stations before the ban comes into effect in 2025.
"Such initiatives are imperative to improve air quality. The transport of the future must be emission-free, sustainable, and clean," said Tilburg city alderman Oscar Dusschooten.
Europe Takes Action
Research by Renault shows that many other European cities are heading in the same direction as the Netherlands, starting with Low Emission Zones of which Germany's "Umweltzone" were pioneers. More than 100 communes in Italy have introduced "Zonas a traffico limitato."
Madrid's "zona de baja emisión" bans diesel vehicles built before 2006 and petrol vehicles from before 2000 from central areas of the city. Barcelona has similar restrictions and the law will require all towns of more than 50,000 inhabitants to follow suit.
Perhaps the most stringent restrictions apply in London's Ultra Low Emission Zone (ULEZ), which charges trucks and large vehicles up to US$137 a day to enter the central area if they do not comply with Euro 6 emissions standards. From October, the ULEZ is being expanded.
Cities are responsible for around 75% of CO2 emissions from global final energy use, according to the green thinktank REN21 - and much of these come from transport. Globally, transport accounts for 24% of world CO2 emissions.
The Rise of Online Shopping
Part of the reason for traffic in urban areas is the increase in delivery vehicles, as online shopping continues to grow. Retailer ecommerce sales are expected to pass $5billion in 2022, according to eMarketer.
The World Economic Forum's report The Future of the Last-Mile Ecosystem, published in January 2020, estimates that e-commerce will increase the number of delivery vehicles on the roads of the world's 100 largest cities by 36% by 2030.
If all those vehicles burn fossil fuels, the report says emissions will increase by 32%. But switching to all-electric delivery vehicles would cut emissions by 30% from current levels as well as reducing costs by 25%, the report says.
Other solutions explored in the report include introducing goods trams to handle deliveries alongside their passenger-carrying counterparts and increased use of parcel lockers to reduce the number of doorstep deliveries.
Reposted with permission from the World Economic Forum.