FAMOUS LAST WORDS Green travel
By Sarah Butler-Sloss, Founder
Director of the Ashden Awards for Sustainable Energy
When we talk about the transition to a Low Carbon Britain, it’s not just about how much energy we use in our homes and workplaces but also about how we travel.
Over the last few decades we’ve travelled more and more by car and shifted more and more goods by lorry. We’ve flown more and travelled further than we ever have before, lured by discount flights and exotic holidays. As we’ve moved away from travel on foot, bike and public transport we have travelled faster but we have also become fatter and less fit, and more stressed – and have created a transport infrastructure which is predicated on the assumption that everyone has access to a car.
Car mileage grew exponentially as a result of people having more disposable incomes, booming car ownership and the demand for longer trips. These days the convenience factor means many journeys that could be made by bus, train, on foot or by bike are taken by car. In the UK, we each travel on average around 140 miles a week and seven out of ten of these journeys are made in either a car or a van.
So why does all this matter? The climate change impact of our travel choices is clear: EU transport emissions account for a staggering 3.5% of total global CO2 emissions. More than half of this is passenger travel . In the UK, car use alone accounts
for 13% of our total CO2 emissions. Short trips are a big proportion of this - car journeys of five miles or less account for around 20% of all surface transport CO2 emissions. Worldwide transport emissions are expected to continue increasing. These are worrying trends if we want to keep greenhouse gases below critical levels and avoid the worse consequences of climate change.
While cutting CO2 emissions is a prime reason for opting for sustainable travel, it can also bring us a better and healthier quality of life. According to the Healthy Air Campaign, every year 29,000 premature deaths are attributable to poor air quality in the UK – nearly 5% of all annual UK deaths – with an average loss of life expectancy of eleven years. By moving to cleaner transport options we will immediately improve respiratory health and reduce the nation’s NHS bill too.
Sustainable travel can make our towns and cities more ‘liveable’. When we travel by bus, train and on foot we connect to the people around us, our neighbours and our communities. And we give people a sense of connection to ‘place’ and a pride in where they live.
ENVIRONMENT INDUSTRY MAGAZINE |187|
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