Fellow Spotlight: June Lukuyu
What if the strongest case for Africa’s electric vehicle transition is not only climate, but public health?
ATFL Fellow June Lukuyu is examining how better transport-related air pollution data and metrics could reveal the health impacts of Africa’s rapidly growing vehicle fleets and help bring public health investment alongside climate finance.
Over the course of her fellowship, June will explore the evidence, measurement gaps, and strategies needed to more fully center air quality and public health in Africa’s EV agenda.
Stay tuned for more from her work.
Video Transcript
June Lukuyu: The question I keep coming back to is, can air quality and public health become a powerful lever for Africa's EV transition?
In earlier research, we found that rapid motorization and a flood of high-emitting used car imports actually made the air quality case for EVs stronger than the climate case.
Then COVID lockdown came and gave us this natural experiment and the air cleared. People in Nairobi could see Mount Kenya for the first time in years. And that image really stuck with me.
There's some evidence pointing in that direction. The question now is whether we can build enough of [the evidence case] to bring public health investment to the table alongside climate finance.
