By David Suzuki

The climate crisis is too big to be remedied by individual actions alone. It requires government policies and regulations and international cooperation in everything from research to global agreements. One critical area where individual acts (including public advocacy) combined with government policy can make a big difference is transportation.

Car culture has fuelled the climate crisis from the beginning. In the early days, large cars weren’t built just for luxury and big families; they were built to burn as much energy-dense oil as possible, fuelling a massively profitable, mutually beneficial alliance between Big Oil and the auto industry. An entire way of life was built around it, in the United States and Canada especially — with motels, drive-ins, suburbs and strip malls.

Now, despite advances in electric and hybrid vehicles, tailpipe standards, better transit in some areas and more, emissions continue to rise, thanks largely to a boom in light truck and SUV sales. To keep the oil economy going, relentless advertising portrays trucks and SUVS as offering freedom, adventure and safety.

According to a recent David Suzuki Foundation report, light-duty trucks (including SUVs and minivans) are one of the fastest-growing sources of emissions in Canada’s transport sector. Although emissions from cars went down by 47 per cent from 1990 to 2022, light duty truck emissions rose by 112 per cent. As of 2020, about 62 per cent of the light-duty vehicles on Canada’s roads were trucks, compared to 27 per cent in 1990.

The report found vehicle upsizing has wiped out 39 per cent of fuel consumption reductions Canada would have seen from increased zero-emissions vehicle sales and fuel economy improvements.

As the study points out, the trend is global: “the proportion of SUVs has grown from 22 per cent of light-duty vehicle sales in 2005 to over 50 per cent in 2022.” The average weight of vehicles has also increased. Between 2010 and 2022, SUVs represented the second-fastest growing source of greenhouse gas emissions globally, after the power sector — higher than heavy industry, heavy-duty trucks and aviation.

According to the International Energy Agency, global SUV oil consumption rose by 500,000 barrels a day from 2021 to 2022, “accounting for one-third of the total growth in oil demand.”

SUVs are also less safe than smaller cars. Pedestrians, cyclists and people in smaller cars, especially, are far more likely to be injured or killed when struck by or in a collision with the heavier vehicle.

It’s clear that individual choices in transportation — resisting the onslaught of consumerist propaganda — can help in the necessary transition to less-polluting, more climate-friendly ways of living. Getting away from unnecessary SUVs and light-duty trucks is a start. But simply buying smaller cars, or hybrid or electric vehicles, won’t solve the problem. That’s where governments come in.

If we’re to move away from the absurd notion that every person needs a tonne or two of metal, plastic, fabric, electronics and other materials to move around — worse when it’s inefficiently burning fossil fuels — we need efficient, alternative ways to move.

Public transit is critical, along with good infrastructure for pedestrians, cyclists and people with mobility challenges. As we move toward these solutions, even those who need to drive, including emergency vehicle and taxi operators, will spend less time in gridlocked traffic, breathing less pollution. And considering the costs of a car and its depreciation, maintenance, insurance, parking, fuel and more, not having one can save a lot of money! Reducing car dependency also makes communities much safer.

Growing technology may also help. Autonomous or self-driving vehicles could make more efficient use of cars for modes like taxi and ride-share services. And better urban planning can create more walkable communities, connected with good public transit.

There’s a real danger that some of the progress made on things like vehicle-emissions standards, alternative transportation infrastructure, public transit, congestion pricing and electric vehicle quotas could be overturned by electoral outcomes.

At the very least, we can all resist the corporate-consumerist push by Big Oil and Auto to keep us boxed into inefficient machines choking on fumes from gas-guzzling SUVs and trucks while we sit in gridlocked traffic. What’s really needed, though, is to replace wasteful car culture altogether with the many safer, healthier, more cost-effective alternatives.

David Suzuki is a scientist, broadcaster, author and co-founder of the David Suzuki Foundation. Written with David Suzuki Foundation Senior Writer and Editor Ian Hanington.

Learn more at davidsuzuki.org.

REFERENCES:

Relentless advertising:

https://davidsuzuki.org/story/its-time-to-regulate-ads-for-suvs-trucks-and-gas-fuelled-cars

David Suzuki Foundation report:

https://davidsuzuki.org/science-learning-centre-article/canadas-future-vehicle-emissions-standard-2024-35-impacts-on-vehicle-size-and-ghg-emissions

According to the International Energy Agency:

https://www.iea.org/commentaries/as-their-sales-continue-to-rise-suvs-global-co2-emissions-are-nearing-1-billion-tonnes

Congestion pricing:

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2025/jan/09/london-congestion-charge-traffic-cars