It's a bright, sunny morning in August 2043, when your Air China flight from Beijing lands gracefully (and almost silently) at LAX. The sleek plane is part of a new generation of hydrogen-powered wide-body jets made by China's Commercial Aircraft Corp., the kind of innovation that helped the state-owned company surpass Boeing and Airbus in the 2030s to become the largest in the world. aerospace group.
Starting with the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022, massive efforts have been made over the past two decades to clean up transportation across the United States and around the world. In the early 2020s, transportation accounted for 29% of U.S. greenhouse gas emissions, but that figure has been steadily declining to near zero, resulting in cleaner cities everywhere.
Not only do they have electricity and hydrogen powered vehicles It replaced gas-guzzling cars, but many people have abandoned car ownership altogether in favor of much cheaper and widely available solutions, such as electric bicycles, automated taxis, and public transportation.
And here, in what was once the largest automobile city in the world, this remarkable transition is on display. The vast Los Angeles landscape, once shrouded in fog and smog, now shines under the Southern California sun. Mount Baldy, to the north, is clearly etched in the distance. The once-notorious traffic jams along the 405, 5, and 101 quickly evaporated with the introduction of congestion pricing on the eve of the 2028 Olympics, and they have never returned.
If the Golden State is going to lead the world toward a better, safer future, our political and business leaders (and the rest of us) will have to work harder to rewrite California's narrative. This is how we can move the state forward.
As you exit the Air China terminal, your always-on ChatGPT-12 assistant, Mindy, weighs the options for which mode of transportation (all carbon-free, of course) can get you home to Sherman Oaks most efficiently and economically. . possible.
Public transportation would be the least expensive; in fact, it's been free since 2035. Thanks to the electric LAX People Mover and the Los Angeles Metro's new high-speed electric express trains, the trip would take just 37 minutes, door to door.
Another option is the increasingly popular Joby AirTaxi, an eVTOL (electric vertical take-off and landing aircraft) service that can get you from LAX to the vertiport landing station at the end of your road in just 12 minutes, for just $45. Finally, you decide on a 35-minute ride in a driverless TaxiPrime, one of the 37,000 electric robot-taxis that now roam the streets of Los Angeles. (TaxiPrime, of course, has become Amazon's biggest revenue generator, following its hostile takeover of Uber in the mid-2030s recession.)
You lean back in the driverless taxi as it glides toward the 405. Huge solar panels line the median strip, absorbing the sun and channeling that energy into the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power's grid. These are complemented by offshore wind farms extending from Catalina Island, whose blades slowly rotate and silently contribute to the energy orchestra. It's a fascinating sight, combining the relentless energy of the city with the quiet power of nature. A quarter-century ago, California led the nation in adopting solar and wind energy to replace hydrocarbons in electricity production; Now the entire nation has caught up.
The hydrogen economy is also in full swing throughout the city, as it is in many cities on the planet. Hydrogen is the most common element in the universe and is widely available simply by splitting water through a process called electrolysis. Since the mid-2020s, when tax credits for hydrogen production became available, hydrogen-powered planes, trains and trucks quickly became an alternative to using large electric batteries for mobility. Everywhere you look these days in Los Angeles you will find various sizes and types of electrolyzers. Even many EV chargers are now off-grid and producing their own hydrogen to power themselves.
This hydrogen revolution extends beyond private vehicles and reaches the field of public transportation. Sleek hydrogen-powered LA DOT buses pass by you in a dedicated lane. Metro's massive light rail system, built in the 2020s and 2030s to become one of the largest in the world, is now also partially powered by hydrogen fuel cells, small electric motors powered by hydrogen. From Santa Monica to East Los Angeles, these clean trains and buses crisscross the city, uniting communities in a mosaic of quiet, sustainable mobility.
Shipping and freight transportation have also finally embraced the green revolution. The Port of Los Angeles, once a major polluter, is now a clean transportation hub. Huge container ships, powered by clean ammonia, wind, methane and other clean fuels, dock and unload their goods, contributing to the economy without harming the environment. The tens of thousands of diesel trucks that until the early 2030s clogged the once-smoky Alameda corridor along the 710 Freeway have given way to clean fleets of fuel cell-powered autonomous trucks. of hydrogen, which then spread throughout the United States.
Finally, the robo-taxi arrives at your house and you are home. As the sun sets, painting the San Fernando Valley in shades of pink and gold, you can watch the city's clean energy grid come to life. Solar and wind energy, stored during the day, now powers the city's electric nightlife. The street lights flicker, powered by clean electricity.
You realize that the transformation of the city goes beyond the physical. The clean air, the quiet hum of electric vehicles, the solar panels and wind turbines dotting the landscape, those strange-looking electrolyzers in strange places like convenience stores—they are more than just symbols of technological progress. They are signs of a city and a state that made difficult decisions to prioritize its environment over convenience, to put the future before the present and transform itself for the better.
As you retire for the night, with a small glass of whiskey handed to you by Alfred, the cheerful domestic cyborg you purchased at 35% off list price on Amazon Prime Day in 2041, you reflect on the incredible journey that brought Los Angeles from a city defined by smog, traffic and divided communities, to a city of clean skies, quiet roads and renewable energy. Los Angeles is, as always, a city defined by movement and mobility. But now it's a city built around humans, not cars.
And just before you fall asleep, think about how easily it could have been completely reversed if climate change-denying populists had won state and national elections in the late 2020s and reversed policies to reduce carbon emissions. carbon.
John Rossant is the founder and CEO of CoMotion, the conferencing and media platform focused on future mobility.
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That: Times reporters Rosanna Xia and Sammy Roth will discuss “Our Climate Change Challenge” during a livestreamed conversation. City Editor Maria L. LaGanga moderates.
When: September 19 at 6 pm Pacific.
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