The world would shave nearly 700 million tons of carbon pollution each year – more than Canada’s annual emissions – if every person adopted the Dutch way of life and cycled every day, new research showed Thursday.
The transport sector is currently responsible for a quarter of all fuel-related greenhouse gas emissions that warm the planet.
Half of these emissions come from passenger cars, and global transport demand is forecast to triple by mid-century.
In their quest to decarbonize transportation, governments and industry have turned to electric vehicles, with 6.75 million units sold in 2021 alone.
Vehicle sales are tracked and published each year. However, it was difficult to calculate the production and ownership of a much older, low-carbon technology: the bicycle.
An international team of researchers has now compiled the first global dataset on bicycle ownership and use by country, dating back to the early 1960s, using statistical models to fill in any information gaps.
They found that between 1962 and 2015, global production of bicycles surpassed that of cars, with China accounting for nearly two-thirds of the more than 123 million bicycles made in 2015.
In an article in the journal Communications Earth and Environment, the team showed that bicycle ownership was generally higher in high- and middle-income countries — but so was the percentage of trips made by car.
This means that high bicycle ownership does not necessarily lead to high bicycle use.
Among the 60 countries included in the dataset, the proportion of bicycle use for travel was only 5 percent. Some countries simply lack bicycle inventories, while others with high bicycle ownership, such as the United States, view cycling more as a recreational activity than as a mode of transportation.
– ‘Go Dutch’ –
The team calculated that if everyone replicated the Danish commute by bike, averaging 1.6 km (1 mile) per day, the world could save around 414 million tonnes of CO2 a year – the equivalent of the UK’s annual emissions.
Going Dutch and cycling 1.6 miles a day like people in the Netherlands do would save 686 million tonnes and bring associated health benefits through increased exercise and improved air quality.
“Global pro-bicycle policies and infrastructure development that enable modal shift, as in the Netherlands and Denmark, may result in significant untapped climate and health benefits,” the authors write.
They said this dual benefit requires better cycling data collection and that there is “an urgent need to promote sustainable cycling through policy, planning and infrastructure development support”.
The study’s lead author, Gang Liu, a professor at the Department of Green Technology at the University of Southern Denmark, said the research showed that bicycles would play an important future role in reducing the carbon footprint of global transport.
“In order to meet such gigantic challenges, you don’t just need technology-related strategies such as lightweight construction or electrification,” he told the AFP news agency.
“But it also needs demand-side strategies, such as alternative mobility patterns – sharing mobility, on-demand mobility and ride-sharing – and modal shifts, such as reducing short-distance car use by cycling.”
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