E-scooters touted as zero-carbon urban transport are flooding city streets worldwide, but just how green they are remains an open question.

The companies – from multinationals to local start-ups  – distributing them insist the omnipresent two-wheel vehicles are a boon for the environment and a curb on global warming.

“Bird was founded to help create a cleaner and more hospitable world that prioritises people over cars,” the American firm, one of the global leaders in e-scooters, says on its website.

“Scooters cut the use of vehicles and reduce the volume of traffic on the road,” it said. “They also help reduce pollution and improve air quality.”

Shared scooters that do not require docking ports can be driven door-to-door, avoid stressful searches for parking spaces, and have zero-emission motors.

On paper, they have the potential to radically reduce urban car traffic: 70% of car trips between home and work in France, for example, are five kilometres or less, according to the French National Institute for Statistics and Economic Research (INSEE).

“Micromobility could theoretically encompass all passenger trips of less than eight kilometres, which account for as much as 50 to 60% of today’s total passenger miles travelled in China, the European Union, and the United States,” consulting firm McKinsey said in a report.

In the US, riders made nearly 40 million trips on shared scooters last year, according to the National Association of City Transportation Officials.

Lime, a major player financed by Uber and Google-parent Alphabet, found that roughly one in every three Lime rides in 26 cities around the world replaces a trip by car.

No long-term data

“From this shift, we estimate that our riders have avoided 24 million km of car travel and prevented 6,220 metric tonnes of carbon emissions” over a two-year period, the company noted.

But do e-scooters live up to all the hype?

With regard to Lime’s claims, a survey by research group 6t of 4,500 commuters in Paris, Lyon and Marseilles revealed that only 19% used scooters to go to work or school – more than 40% of usage was by out-of-town visitors.

Without access to e-scooters, 44% of respondents said they would have walked, 12% said they would have biked, and 30% would have used public transport.

Cars barely entered into the picture.

“But this doesn’t mean that we should get rid of e-scooters – absolutely not!”, said Jeremie Almosni, head of mobility at the Ademe, the French government agency for energy efficiency.

“The fact that half of the usage is recreational is striking,” he acknowledged. “But at least this favours a more mixed use of transport. It’s definitely a way to get people out-and-about more, and perhaps a way of encouraging them to give up cars.”

There is also a lot of uncertainty as to the lifespan of shared e-scooters, which varies with hardware and intensity of usage.

It’s a key question, because how long they last is a major part of what determines environmental impact.

“As of today, it is impossible to say whether e-scooters are good or bad for the environment because we lack long-term statistics on life cycles,” said Denis Benita, a transportation engineer at Ademe.

One study from Louisville, Kentucky put the average life span at 28 days. Another said it was closer to three months.

‘We learned a lot’

Across what has already become a multi-billion dollar industry, companies are trying to make the machines more robust, and thus more profitable.

“An electric scooter lasts twice as long today as when we first came to France in June 2018,” a Lime France spokesman told AFP.

The company also recycles the hardware – “every piece, down to the last screw, is reused,” according to the spokesman.

The learning curve has been equally sharp for Bird, said Kenneth Schlenker, head of Bird France.

“We’ve only been operating in cities for about a year and a half,” he told AFP. “We’ve learned a lot in that time.”

By consolidating parts from engines, for example, the company plans to expand their life span two years, he noted.

The company aims to make travel by Bird carbon neutral by reducing emissions and through carbon credits.”

Batteries are another issue.

The electric scooter and motorcycle market – which could be worth US$14 billion by 2025, according to Markets & Research – has mostly shifted to lithium-ion (Li-ion) batteries, which are lighter and last longer than other kinds.

But lithium is not problem-free either: it poses an environmental risk related to both sourcing and waste.

Lime has recently partnered with a French company that claims it can recycle 70% of spent batteries.

HONG KONG: US President Donald Trump continued his attack on the Federal Reserve, saying it “raised rates too soon, too often” and “doesn’t have a clue.”

“Our most difficult problem is not our competitors, it is the Federal Reserve!” the president said in two Twitter posts late on Friday. He said “massive additional wealth would have been created” if the central bank had not tightened policy.

KUALA LUMPUR, July 6 — An international school has apologised over its students’ performance that Primary Industries Minister Teresa Kok had criticised as allegedly being “anti-palm oil”, she said today.

In a post on her official Facebook account, Kok said The International School @Parkcity’s senior administrators — education director Andrew Dalton and principal Jonathan Turner — as well as Parkcity director Sukhdev Singh had yesterday paid her a visit to explain the incident involving an alleged “anti-palm oil message”.

Kok said the international school’s administrators had shared with her the video clip which was shown at the school’s assembly for its students, with the video clip featuring an excerpt of environmental watchdog Greenpeace’s alleged “anti-palm oil video” titled “Rang-Tan” and with the students merely enacting the roles in the latter video.

“They apologised to me for the unfortunate incident and said that on hindsight, they could have handled the situation better,” she said in a statement today.

Tagging the meeting with the school as the “beginning of a new partnership”, Kok applauded the international school for showing sincerity with their visit.

“I must say that I truly appreciate their visit and sincerity in resolving this unfortunate misunderstanding. The humility and sincerity shown by them is undeniable proof that they are indeed a good group of professional people who run and administer the school.

“I hope this incident will open the doors wider to spur further engagement with other international schools,” she said.

Kok said she had explained numerous points regarding palm oil to the international school administrators, noting that she had reiterated her stand “that the issue is not about stifling freedom of expression in schools”.

“Rather, it is about them having a fuller understanding of both sides of the coin about the palm oil controversy, particularly the numerous efforts taken by the government and the palm oil industry players towards sustainability of the entire value chain of the oil palm industry,” she said.

Kok noted that the palm oil industry is governed by about 60 legislations and regulations, adding that the government is strongly advocating for the entire palm oil industry to fully adopt the mandatory certification of Malaysian Sustainable Palm Oil (MPSO) and that RM100 million had recently been allocated to help smallholders pay for such certification costs.

“In our discussion, I explained to the administrators of The International School @Parkcity the health benefits of palm oil, including red palm oil and vitamin E tocotrienols. They were very surprised to learn of this,” she said.

Kok said she had also explained that oil palm had become controversial as its high productivity gave stiff competition to other edible oils and posed a “threat to vested interests”.

“If there is no oil palm in the world, with the growth of the world population, nations would have cleared more rainforest in order to grow other forms of lower productivity oil crops to satisfy the global consumption needs,” she said, adding that she had highlighted to the international school of palm oil’s role in lifting millions of rural Malaysians from poverty and its importance in the local economy.

During a press conference on Tuesday, Kok had criticised an unnamed international school for organising the play and accused it of propagating falsehoods about the palm oil industry.

On July 4, Kok’s DAP colleague and women, family and community development deputy minister Hannah Yeoh defended the international school which was within her constituency, saying the video clip was only a small excerpt of a 24-minute performance on multiple environmental issues by students at their weekly assembly.

Yeoh said she had personally watched the full video and was convinced that there was no agenda to undermine the government’s effort to promote palm oil.

Palm oil is a critical commodity for Malaysia as the country is the world’s second-largest producer after Indonesia, and Kok’s ministry is currently pushing a campaign to promote palm oil amid the European Union’s proposal to cut down on consumption of palm oil due to concerns over the sustainable cultivation of oil palms.

The EU is proposing to prohibit palm oil in biofuels by 2021 and a complete phasing-out of the commodity ten years after that.

In January, Putrajaya launched a year-long “Love MY Palm Oil” campaign to fight anti-palm oil campaigns that it said are threatening the livelihood of Malaysians involved in the industry.

GEORGE TOWN, July 6 — China’s leading technology company Huawei is expected to visit the Penang Digital Library (PDL) to look into possible areas of investment in the field of technology, said Finance Minister Lim Guan Eng.

Lim said PDL is a unique success story in that it is the only digital library in the country without a hardcopy book and is operational round the clock.

According to Lim, during his recent visit to the Huawei headquarters in Shenzhen he had invited the company to visit digital libraries in Malaysia to see how it could help enhance their technological systems.

“While attending a briefing by Huawei in China, I also invited them to come and see for themselves how they could support (us), that is by providing augmentation in terms of 5G technological elements,” he told reporters here today.

Lim said PDL was now offering internet at 4G speed and he hoped that with the support of Huawei the system could be improved.

“They may come in two or three weeks’ time to have a closer look at PDL,” he said.

If Huawei agreed to help, this could become a pilot project for the adoption of 5G internet at digital libraries, he said.

Earlier, Lim, who is also Bagan Member of Parliament, announced the success of PDL and Tan Bee Eu, the principal project architect, in winning a gold medal awarded by the Malaysian Institute of Architects.

He said the award was a recognition for the architect of the PDL building, which has been developed by the state government through a public-private sector joint initiative the past three years.

“This award clearly shows that the PDL project has gained attention not only in Penang but also outside of the state. We plan to extend this PDL construction model to Kedah with the cooperation of the same architect,” he said.

In a report last month, Lim announced that the government through the Northern Corridor Implementation Authority (NCIA) had approved a RM15 million allocation for building a digital library in Alor Setar, Kedah. — Bernama

WELLINGTON: Google agreed Friday to change how it publishes New Zealand news after top officials in Wellington lashed the US tech giant for breaching court suppression orders in a high-profile murder case.

Google had refused to tighten publication standards after sending out a news email to public subscribers in December that named an accused killer in violation of a court order.

Justice Minister Andrew Little this week accused Google of “giving the middle finger” to New Zealand’s court system and the family of British murder victim, Grace Millane.

He described the online behemoth’s one-paragraph response to Wellington’s concerns, which indicated no action was pending, as “contemptible” and “extraordinarily disrespectful”.

Google insisted Friday that it respected New Zealand law, saying there had been a “miscommunication” and it was taking the issue seriously.

“We understand the right to a fair trial and acknowledge that this is a fundamental part of the legal system,” it said in a letter to Little’s office.

As a result, it said the Google Trends feature that led to the accused’s name being published had been suspended in New Zealand.

“This means that people will no longer receive emails on any trending searches for New Zealand and provides even further assurance against any recurrence,” it said.

Little, who was furious after the initial rebuff, welcomed Google’s “responsible” change of policy.

“Work on how suppression orders will be upheld in the digital age will continue,” he said.

Millane, 22, was killed in December last year shortly after arriving in Auckland on holiday in a crime that shocked New Zealand.

A 27-year-old man has pleaded not guilty to her murder.

The row is the second time the New Zealand government has taken social media giants to task in recent months.

New Zealand prime minister Jacinda Ardern led global efforts to force them to curb hate speech in the wake of the Christchurch mosques massacre in March, when a gunman killed 51 Muslim worshippers as they gathered for Friday prayers.

“We would like to build on the constructive spirit that emerged from our work with the New Zealand government on the call for action on Christchurch,” Google said.

LONDON: British singer Joss Stone said she was “gutted” after being deported from Iran ahead of the latest leg of a world tour that has already taken her to Syria and North Korea.

She was held shortly after arriving at Kish airport, according to a post on her Instagram account, as authorities suspected she was planning to play a public gig.

Women have been banned from singing solo in public in Iran since the Islamic revolution of 1979.

“We were aware there couldn’t be a public concert as I am a woman and that is illegal in this country,” she wrote, without specifying where or how she had hoped to play.

“So close yet so far, this moment broke a little piece of my heart,” she wrote it the post, below a picture of herself wearing a headscarf.

The gig in Kish would have been the 200th of the “Total World Tour” she embarked on five years ago, she wrote in another post before departing for Kish.

That tour is an ambitious project to perform in every country on Earth and has seen her play in war-torn Libya, South Sudan as well as an “unofficial” gig in the capital of North Korea.

However, she described the Iranian immigration officials as “genuinely nice kind people that felt bad that they couldn’t override the system,” and that they had refused her entry “with a heavy heart”.