Electric cars are ready for gasoline car use cases, leaving 5-10% or so where EV is not ready. (the places where electric cars ready are not are places where diesel is better than gasoline, though some people do use gasoline anyway). Currently EVs are in the phase of scaling production, but that will take a bit of time.
> We could’ve replaced coal plants two decades ago, however, and reduced emissions by 20% globally
What we would have replaced coal with 20 years ago (and in fact what we did starting more than 20 years ago) is mostly natural gas, which itself pollutes, just less. (depending on what pollution you measure you will get different numbers for how much less) Wind and solar is coming along fast, and is also replacing coal plants (for nearly zero pollution) but we are already scaling those as fast as possible so to claim we could have done more 20 years ago is false.
> We could’ve replaced coal plants two decades ago, however, and reduced emissions by 20% globally
What we would have replaced coal with 20 years ago (and in fact what we did starting more than 20 years ago) is mostly natural gas, which itself pollutes, just less. (depending on what pollution you measure you will get different numbers for how much less) Wind and solar is coming along fast, and is also replacing coal plants (for nearly zero pollution) but we are already scaling those as fast as possible so to claim we could have done more 20 years ago is false.