An Early Leader in Clean Cars Is Now Working To Delay Them


When Toyota paid nearly $1 billion to become the official sponsor of the Tokyo Olympics, the company hoped the event would be an opportunity to draw attention to its hydrogen fuel cell cars.

This technology, unlike conventional gas-powered cars, does not produce planet-warming emissions, and Toyota has long insisted that driving is the future in a world that needs cleaner vehicles to avoid the most devastating effects of climate change.

However, as with the Tokyo Games, things did not go as planners expected. Most experts say the world is now on the verge of a major shift towards another new technology: electric cars.

as i wrote in an article this weekHowever, with huge resources pouring into hydrogen cars, Toyota is backing down against electric vehicles. In the process, critics say, the automaker has become the auto industry’s biggest competitor to climate action.

quotation: “They were really on the right track, especially with the release of the Prius, and they’re still talking about climate change,” said Margo T. Oge, a former senior official with the Environmental Protection Agency. “But they are struggling with policies for electric vehicles around the world, and this is hurting policymakers’ efforts to take ambitious measures.”


The season that Americans thought they understood – playtime and comfort, a sun we can trust, the air we breathe and, at worst, a natural world that is indifferent – ​​has become something else, something ominous and vast. This is the summer when we see climate change converge from the abstract to the present, the summer we realize that every summer from now on will be more like this. any strange memories from past summers.


World leaders will meet in Glasgow in November for an important round of climate talks, and The Times will be there. We bring together scientists, company executives, academics, conference delegates and other opinion leaders at the New York Times Climate Center. To find out how you can participate online or in person, visit: nyclimatehub.com.

You may have seen the shocking images on your social media feed lately: passengers trapped in flooded subway cars in Zhengzhou, China, or a woman walking through waist-deep water at a New York City subway station.

The recent flood is sounding alarm bells for subway managers around the world: their systems are being overwhelmed by the increasingly extreme weather conditions linked to climate change.

This is very ironic, because public transport plays a critical role in climate policy by reducing the number of cars in big cities. If commuters fear the sights of flooded stations and start avoiding subways for private cars, it could worsen urban air pollution and greenhouse gas emissions.

You can do Read my article with my colleague John Schwartz here.

Leer en espanol: La crisis climate convierte los metros del mundo en zonas de inundacion.

We are not satisfied with John Schwartz.

I know I speak for all my colleagues on the New York Times climate team when I say this. Why? Because after 21 years at The Times, John is leaving us this week to take a position teaching journalism at the University of Texas at Austin.

We would get over it. You can’t stay mad at a man like John. But still a great loss.

First, he’s a very, very smart reporter. The kind that makes their editors look good. I know this from experience. John had more than 2,400 signatures on almost every part of the article, of which nearly 200 made it to Page One. Numbers don’t lie.

In addition, there’s something the numbers can’t show: He’s one of The New York Times’ wittiest and most beloved people. Instead of trying to explain it from me, just take a look article he wrote about his long work in The Times this week. You will get the picture. You’ll also learn the story behind that donut car and how it flew a jetpack. A real one. Seriously.

Our loss is Texas’ gain. You can hang your hat on this.


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