The day of reckoning is dawning for transportation. As climate change becomes a major driver of European public policy, the whole industry will finally come under pressure to clean up. Until now it has been the only sector of the economy allowed to increase its emissions, but that is a trend that will clearly have to change. Agriculture, housing, and industry can no longer continue to compensate for growing transport CO2 emissions. The only question is how, and by how much, transport emissions can be brought down. The answers are likely to be painful.
Consider some of the key figures. From 1990 to 2006, global CO2 emissions rose by 33%, while energy consumed for transport – an indicator of global transport emissions – jumped by 43%. The two largest global greenhouse gas emitters, the United States and China, demonstrated a similar trend. American CO2 emissions increased by 17% overall and by 27% in the transport sector, while Chinese emissions soared 152% overall, with transport up 335%. Even in Europe, where overall emissions dropped by 5%, transport CO2 emissions (including maritime and aviation) saw a 36% spike. Had Europe’s transport sector followed the trend of the broader economy, total European greenhouse gas emissions during the period 1990-2006 would have fallen by 13%.
Within the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, the global community is now looking to forge a climate change agreement to pick up when the Kyoto Protocol ends in 2012. A global pact is key to European Union policy. European Union leaders agreed in March 2007 on an ambitious climate change strategy, committing to reduce emissions by 30% by 2020 compared to 1990 levels, provided an international agreement could be reached with other industrialised countries. If forced to act alone, the EU pledged to reduce its emissions by 20%.
The European Commission in January 2008 presented a package of legislative proposals to reach these goals, but they remain insufficient and incomplete. Europe’s present policies fail to rein in transport pollution. Additional measures targeting the transport industry look unavoidable if Europe is to meet its unilateral 20% target, and truly stringent measures are required to prepare for the stricter reductions in line with the Bali roadmap. Depending on the target chosen, the shortfall is estimated at between 50 and 165 megatonnes of CO2 equivalent.
What measures look possible? First, it’s worth listing measures that have been discussed, but which generate only minimal benefits. While eco-driving campaigns in local areas have reduced emissions by a few percentage points in some small areas, it remains unproven that such measures will remain effective over long periods and can be scaled up to regional, national and European Union levels.
Many support shifting away from a culture based on individual automobiles to more energy-efficient transportation modes. So far, however, policy alone has been unable to reverse the decline of market share in rail and bus transport.
Besides behavioural changes, another avenue for attack is technological advances in passenger cars. The European Commission suggested cutting car emissions to 120 grams of CO2 per kilometer by 2012. This would further cut emissions by around 42 megatonnes of CO2 equivalent and almost fulfill Europe’s target for emission reduction. In the political haggling over the proposal the compromise reached did not go quite as far: 130g of CO2 per km by 2015 but with a possible 2020 target of 95g of CO2 per km.
Judging by the lack of progress so far in vehicle efficiency, even a 130g of CO2 per km reduction looks unrealistic. Possible future technologies such as battery-driven or hydrogen-driven vehicles are unlikely to be rolled out fast enough. Potential emission cutbacks from other vehicles look small--trucks already have been optimised for low energy consumption, and trains represent a small share of overall CO2 emission.
This leads to a sobering conclusion: We must reduce total transport demand. The only policy proven to work is to raise prices. In July 2008, crude oil rose to almost $150 a barrel, spurring people to change habits. Oil prices then dropped sharply again as the economic crisis started to bite. Very recent but also incomplete numbers indicate that transport growth is now beginning to slow if not to fall outright, even though the locations of housing, work places, institutions and shops makes some elements of transport demand very inelastic. Because the change is tied more to pump prices than to specific policies, we may expect a return to old trends as soon as the economic situation improves. European policymakers must act to ensure that automobile use remains costly enough to force consumers to pay for the environmental burden and thereby change their lifestyles. Whether this happens in form of urban tolling, road pricing, gas taxes or other means is less important as long as it happens. This represents a difficult prescription, but it is the only way forward.
The tentative targets used for this analysis are not based on cost-efficiency across sectors, but the main messages are clear:
Implementation of non-technical measures, including behavioural change on an EU level as well as on national and local levels, must continue and if possible be intensified to improve overall efficiency in transport and mobility.
If the increase in transport volumes is not limited, implementation of technical measures will not be enough to achieve an environmentally sustainable transport system that limits climate change.
Seriously addressing the problem of transport growth requires the cooperation and perhaps regulation of such sectors as housing, agriculture and manufacturing, which form the foundations of transport demand.
Policymakers must not shy away from using the most effective tool to modify automobile use: price.