Buenos Aires takes on the car, and it’s not alone: Fuel for Thought

The global effort to reduce reliance on gasoline and diesel may be fought on the streets of the world's cities.

In Buenos Aires , officials are making it easier to get around by bike and public transport, even on foot, to reduce car traffic and fight climate change.

“We are increasing the level of service to make public transport sexy to the community, to make people keep choosing it to move around the city,” said Juan José Méndez, the city’s secretary of transport. While he didn’t have an estimate on the impact on refined product consumption, the effort is in line with a national drive to replace more diesel and gasoline with natural gas.

Javier Iguacel, the country’s energy secretary, has set a target of fueling 80% of urban buses and 20% of passenger cars and cargo trucks with gas by 2030, tripling vehicular consumption to 20 million cu m/d, from 6.5 million cu m/d this year. The increased use of gas as well as biofuels and electric vehicles , along with a ramp up in renewable power capacity to 20% of demand in 2025, should keep oil consumption steady at 500,000 b/d even as production increases, according to Iguacel.

He estimates crude production will double to 1 million b/d in 2023 with the development of Vaca Muerta, the country’s biggest shale play, taking exports to 500,000 b/d by that year. With less consumption, “more oil can be exported,” he said.

Cities take on fossil fuels

To lure people out of their cars — there are 1.6 million vehicles in the city of three million — Buenos Aires has installed more than 180 km of bike lanes and introduced a free bike-sharing system. Subways and trains have been air-conditioned and run more frequently. A new bus rapid transit (BRT) system has sped up commutes by up to 50% over more than 62 km of dedicated bus lanes. The next step, Méndez said, is to build and improve BRT and train links with the suburbs to encourage more of the 1.4 million people who drive in to take public transport instead.

Buenos Aires is not alone in its efforts. In October, leaders of the Urban 20, a group of some of the world’s biggest cities, agreed at a summit in Buenos Aires to work on accelerating “a global shift away from fossil fuels toward clean and renewable energy,” according to a communiqué.

The U-20 leaders said cities can play a key role in this effort because they consume more than 75% of the world’s energy. For more mayors, sustainable transport is not just about cutting pollution, but being competitive. Robert Rivkin, Chicago ’s deputy mayor, said young adults in the US “tend now to prefer to live in the core of city where they can walk to work and take public transport,” or use ride-sharing services. “They have no interest in owning a car or commuting to the suburbs.” If cities want to attract jobs, they must cater to this demand, he said.

Even in Houston, where cars are the norm, a BRT is under construction, and there are plans to improve bike transport, said City Councilman David Robinson. In Helsinki , where 70% of people use public transport at rush hour, Mayor Jan Vapaavouri said a focus should be on avoiding sprawl by improving city centers, helping to minimize the time to get around so more people will opt to bike, walk and use public transport.

An impact on oil demand?

According to ExxonMobil ’s 2018 energy outlook to 2040, more EVs and “efficiency improvements in conventional engines” likely will lead to “a peak in liquid fuels use by the world’s light-duty vehicle fleet by 2030.” But that decline will be offset, in part, by rising demand for oil from the commercial transport and chemicals industries, it said.

Oil will continue to play “a significant role” as the global energy mix shifts to lower-carbon fuels, led by renewables , nuclear and natural gas , Kris Nygaard, an engineer with the ExxonMobil Upstream Research Co., said in a November presentation in Mendoza, Argentina . “Energy transitions take time,” he said.

Aromar Revi, a coordinating lead author of an October report by the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change(opens in a new tab) (IPCC) warning that action must be taken over the next 12 years to cap global warming at 1.5ºC, said the transition out of oil and gas , and possibly coal , could take “a generation or a little bit more than that.”

While the pace depends on how to provide energy to countries like India , where renewables capacity growth is lagging demand, meaning that coal will be used for longer than in other markets, he said oil companies should react. “The smart energy majors,” he said, “are actually transforming their portfolio so there is less focus on oil.”