If you’ve heard about electric vehicles before, you might often wonder about the infrastructures that come with them, such as charging stations.
In the Philippines, if you’re living in a small city like I do, most probably, you’ve never seen an e-vehicle charging station. And that’s because the supply of and demand for electric vehicles haven’t really kicked off yet. That also means that gas stations are still ubiquitous.
But what if, along with a change in the transportation system in the country, the shift to electric vehicles would also mean banning new gas stations?
From the article Bay Area city becomes first in the US to ban new gas stations:
“There’s no need for new fossil fuel infrastructure, from gas stations to pipelines to refineries,” Matt Krogh, campaign director at Stand.earth, told Gizmodo. “In California in particular, where state climate targets are required by law, new gas stations will have a short shelf life, and could be abandoned before they make enough money to pay for their own shut down and clean up. This gas station ban is a common sense step to not get further bogged down by fossil fuel infrastructure.”
Apparently, as you shift towards using electric vehicles, it also displaces gas stations with new infrastructures that accommodate the new system.
If the Philippines wants to mitigate GHG emissions by 75%, based on its updated Nationally Determined Contribution Communicated to the UNFCCC on 15 April 2021 for the Paris Agreement, then it takes to have a solid government policy to usher the entry of the new system together with investors willing to put their money out of the conventional into the future of transportation (including electric vehicle charging stations too).
At some point, it will eventually make economic sense.
jessa 