Why do policy makers focus on car emmissions and not (seemingly) much more impactful factors like trucking and commute by car?
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Policy makers are politicians. They depend on the voters popular opinion to be reelected. The only reason they even care about emmissions is so they can convince voters that they are in fact fighting global climate change and local air polution. And a lot of voters love to be able to commute to work by car and have trucks deliver packages directly to their warehouses. Anything policy makers can do to make it seam like the commute is easier will get more people to vote for them, or at least make them still vote for them. Any any new policies that makes it harder for people to commute will make them vote for the opposition. Even though a lot of people are for building out public transport infrastructure this is only if they are not personally impacted, or even that they want more public transport in order to get people off the highways to reduce congestion. People are not rational. So you end up with policy makers focusing on individual car emmissions and unfunded public transport infrastructure in order to become more popular among the voters rather then tackeling the problem head on and close down car lanes to build working public transport.
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