In order to maintain our  [US] national car addiction and stay within a national transportation-related emissions “budget” that scientists agree is necessary to maintain the planet at temperatures our ecosystems can survive, the United States would need to replace a whopping 90 percent of gas-powered cars on the roads with zero-emissions electric vehicles by 2050, researchers at the University of Toronto found.

Right now, just 1.5 percent of new vehicle sales in the U.S. are electric cars, and roughly 99.7 percent of cars on the road today are powered by fossil fuels.

The study was careful to note that EVs are not a lost cause, and are, of course, “likely to reduce emissions in the United States when compared with conventional gasoline vehicles.” But the researchers cautioned of the dangers of policies that over-focus on electric cars, especially if they come at the expense of investments in proven strategies for which we have the technology in place today to significantly curb emissions.

Those strategies include massive public transit adoption, mass construction of active transportation infrastructure, and fundamentally redesigning our cities to make car-free or car-light living possible for more people.