A green transport sector? More a black mark

Why is it that the transport sector has acquired such a bad name as far as climate change is concerned? After all, transport policy in the form of the fuel duty escalator and the Voluntary Agreement between motor manufacturers to improve new car fuel efficiency have secured some of the greatest savings in carbon dioxide emissions in the UK Climate Change Programme. Last month’s budget included some clear policy signals in the form of increases in Vehicle Excise Duty for the most polluting cars as well as a renewed commitment to increase fuel duty by at least the rate of inflation over the next few years. We have targets for the use of biofuels and a brand new campaign to encourage people to drive their cars in the most fuel efficient way.

I would suggest there are at least half a dozen reasons for its poor reputation, all giving grave cause for concern as far as the UK’s potential to meet its greenhouse gas emissions targets are concerned.

First and foremost, transport has been the only sector which has seen consistently increasing emissions since the Kyoto baseline year of 1990. More worryingly, even if all the transport policies in the most recent Climate Change Programme, including those addressing biofuels and new car fuel economy, come to fruition by the target dates (and history indicates that this is unlikely), carbon emissions from transport are not expected to fall below 1990 levels by 2050 unless additional policies are introduced.

Second, these policy programmes and emissions forecasts do not even include the fastest growing source of emissions from this sector: international aviation (highlighted by Sally Cairns in February’s Parliamentary Brief).

Third, there are no policies to target the second fastest growing source of transport emissions — vans. Indeed, emissions from passenger cars have been stable for the past decade. By contrast, since 1990, carbon emissions have increased by 42 per cent and 27 per cent from light goods vehicles and heavy goods vehicles respectively.

Fourth, the Climate Change programme relies on instruments which have either been abandoned (the fuel duty escalator implies increases above inflation for which there is no longer any firm commitment), have grossly underperformed (the Voluntary Agreement) or whose net emissions savings are questionable, such as the Renewable Transport Fuels Obligation (RTFO).

The evidence is stacking up to suggest corn- and soy-based biofuels produce more greenhouse gas emissions per unit of energy than conventional fuel, because of the energy inputs in production and processing.

Fifth, the main planks of transport policy are either under the jurisdiction of the EU or the Treasury. The Department for Transport itself is taking very little responsibility, other than for the problematic RTFO.

Last, and by no means least, government policy seems to suggest that we can rely on century-old objectives of more travel and higher speed and that science and technology will provide the magic solution. There are almost no policies aimed at affecting the amount of travel.

Indeed, the prime minister has suggested that the transport sector should concentrate on technological developments to cut carbon emissions and believes trying to reduce car and air travel by making them much more expensive is politically impractical.

Yet, the fundamental reason for the relentless increase in carbon emissions from this sector is the inability for technological developments to outpace the demand for personal and freight mobility — having grown at an average of 2.5 per cent per year since 1980. As David Carslaw’s reminded us in Parliamentary Brief in March, despite significant improvements in vehicle efficiency, total transport emissions have continued to rise.

Certainly, there is still a long way to go even in the short term to encourage the purchase of lighter, more efficient vehicles and furthering diesel penetration. However, unless we affect how the car and freight vehicles are used, these improvements will continue to be neutralised by travel patterns.

In the medium and longer term, the favoured technological fixes are hybrid and hydrogen cars. Yet these are far from carbon free. Some hybrid vehicles produce more carbon emissions per kilometre than those produced by medium sized diesel cars. Hydrogen is a non-polluting fuel only if there are adequate supplies of non carbon energy to produce it.

Given that less than two per cent of energy traded in the UK (i.e. five per cent of electricity generation) comes from renewable sources, it is unlikely the electricity supply industry will have enough surplus ‘green electricity’ in the next 50 years to fuel travel demand. The academic consensus seems to believe technology will reduce emissions of a car of a given weight by no more than 30 per cent. This is half of what is needed to reach the UK-wide 60 per cent emissions reduction target by 2050 and will be eroded by the steady growth in car, van and lorry use.

This means that other sectors will have to compensate for the transport sector by reducing by more than 60 per cent, or, as the recent draft Climate Change Bill allows, actions by UK bodies to reduce emissions abroad will count towards the target achievement. The same principle is embedded in possible plans to include surface transport in the EU emissions trading scheme. This may make economic sense if savings can be made more cheaply elsewhere and the system will not be destabilised by an influx of emission intensive activity.

But relatively quick and cheap savings can be made by encouraging simple behaviour changes. There is vast potential to reduce the one-in-five car trips that are less than two miles. Policies such as travel planning, car sharing, car clubs and walking and cycling are far from mainstream in UK transport policy at the national and local level. Another very effective quick hit would be the strict enforcement of the 70 mph speed limit on dual carriageways and motorways.

But most importantly, whether we rely on technology or elaborate schemes such as emissions trading, we risk making the most fundamental error of all: ignoring the fact that, when addressing climate change, the crucial policy goal is not to achieve a specific reduction by the end of a policy programme, it is to release as little carbon as possible between now and the programme’s end date.

In other words, the rate of progress towards the target for 2050 is just as important as the end target itself. Thus it is essential to start making significant progress as soon as possible. On this basis, it would seem the transport sector deserves the criticism it receives.

Dr Jillian Anable is a Research Fellow at The Centre for Transport Policy, The Robert Gordon University, Aberdeen. She is a specialist in transport and climate change, leading this topic for the UK Energy Research Centre and acting as Strategic Advisor to the Commission for Integrated Transport. She can be contacted at j.anable@rgu.ac.uk.