- The Drive Electric Campaign, a global initiative to accelerate electric vehicle uptake, has received a $100 million funding boost.
- The world’s emerging economies will account for the bulk of growth in demand for cars, trucks, buses and two- or three-wheeled vehicles by 2050.
The Drive Electric Campaign, a global initiative to accelerate electric vehicle uptake, has received a $100 million funding boost from the IKEA Foundation. The grant will help developing countries bypass gasoline-driven vehicles and go straight to the greener alternative.
The European Climate Foundation said the IKEA Foundation’s latest funding donation would help support lobbying efforts and campaign for the EV transition in Africa, Latin America and Southeast Asia under the “Leapfrogging Partnership” initiative.
The world’s emerging economies will account for the bulk of growth in demand for cars, trucks, buses and two- or three-wheeled vehicles by 2050, and the hope is that investing in the countries now can help ensure the growth is all electric.
IKEA Foundation’s portfolio manager for the real economy, Edgar van de Brug, explained: “Road transportation accounts for roughly 15 per cent of energy-related greenhouse gas emissions, so if we are serious about a global transition towards 1.5 degrees of global warming, then we cannot reduce emissions without it.”
The grant, one of the IKEA Foundation’s largest-ever charitable donations, will support local partners working to tackle key barriers to expansion, like limited charging infrastructure and a lack of EV-friendly policies, as they seek to create better market conditions to unlock public and private finance, he added.
Furthermore, the Drive Electric Campaign said the grant could help save around 43 gigatons of carbon dioxide equivalent (CO2e) by 2050 in Brazil, Mexico, Indonesia, and South Africa.
The funding expansion follows success in other countries, including India, where the electrification of last-mile delivery for parcels in urban areas was “taking off at a massive scale”, van de Brug said.