https://www.ucsusa.org/sites/default/files/attach/2015/11/Cl...
And yes, 12 years is nothing. Countries could start replacing all cars with electric ones for free right now, CO2 would just go higher and higher.
The answer to this environmental catastrophe is not manufacturing new cars. If we would have stopped buying and using cars 40 years ago...
How?
I wish people would stop fixating on this magical 12 years figure. It's not a countdown. If we keep our current carbon emissions the same for 12 years we'll see 2 degrees of warming. If we do nothing. If we continue to do nothing after that point it doesn't stay at 2 degrees. It gets hotter and hotter, and the effects get worse and worse. If countries start replacing cars with electric ones for free now, and we still don't reach zero emissions in 12 years, we might see 2 degrees. But we might avoid 3 degrees, or 4 degrees.
We don't have 12 years left and then game over. We have 12 years until things start to get really bad. And then the UN will come out and say we have 12 years left to act to avoid 3 degrees, and we'll all have these same fucking stupid arguments on the internet again in between news bulletins about famine and the various migrant crises.
We need to immediately, and meaningfully, move away from oil, gas, and other carbon heavy industries in any way that we presently have the means to do so.
If everyone who is presently in the market for a new vehicle could afford to buy an electric one, we'd probably be in better shape. If every household could put solar panels and take a load off of the grid, we would be moving in the right direction.
The problem is these technologies are new, and expensive, and they can't be effective at solving the problem they set out to solve without mass adoption.
Mass adoption won't even _begin_ to happen until the average person can pick up a used Model 3 for around $10k. Where populations heavily use mopeds and motorcycles we need a flood of affordable electric alternatives. Both of those scenarios are at least a decade out.
If we need to solve this in 12 years we're screwed. Best bet is to move somewhere cold and inland. Then at least you can be somewhat comfortable while the whole thing goes down. Although the process of moving the world's economy away from oil (to whatever extent that can be achieved while still producing plastics etc.) is going to make life miserable no matter where you are.