Title: How Low Can Transport Go? Assessing Transport’s Contribution to a Low Carbon Economy in the East of England
Abstract: This paper describes how the East of England Transport and Carbon Study (TraCS) was conducted in 2009, as the United Kingdom (UK) Government published its Low Carbon Transition Plan and Carbon Reduction Strategy for Transport. The objective of the Plan and the Strategy were to set out how emissions will be cut to achieve the legally binding target, set by the UK Climate Change Act 2008, of at least an 80% cut in UK greenhouse gas emissions by 2050. The paper describes how 2009 was also a key year for global action on climate change as more than 180 countries met in Copenhagen in December to negotiate a new international agreement on climate change. Negotiations continue today, aiming to keep global temperature rises below the 2°C level. This represents a considerable challenge for both developed and developing nations as the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change predicts that global temperatures could rise by between 1.8 and 4°C by 2100 without urgent action. Transport is a significant contributor to greenhouse gases emissions. In the United Kingdom (UK), domestic transport emissions account for 24% of total carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions and they have increased by 11% between 1990 and 2007. In the East of England, road transport emissions accounted for 32.7% of local CO2 emissions in 2007. Previous research suggested that this was likely to rise further into the future under a ‘business as usual’ scenario; however, this needs to be set against East of England targets set out in the Regional Economic Strategy that seeks to reduce carbon emissions across all sectors by 60% by the year 2031 but at the same time promoting economic growth. This study was therefore undertaken to understand how far the transport sector could be pushed under alternative, low carbon scenarios and, importantly, to explore the economic consequences of doing this. Both of these aspects are key to the UK Coalition Government’s views that a modern transport system is essential for a dynamic economy and that the transport sector also need to be ‘greener’.
Publication Year: 2010
Publication Date: 2010-01-01
Language: en
Type: article
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Cited By Count: 1
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