High speed rail
Jim Steer says high-speed rail can help meet carbon emissions targets – but there are certain conditions that must be met
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0 2010 2020 HSR
2030 Air
2040 Car June 2013 Page 65 2050
he government’s plans for HS2 have the potential to transform long-distance rail travel in Britain and for such a major project, it is vital that it is
planned in a sustainable way. A huge range of environmental aspects are currently under study by HS2 Ltd in preparation for the environmental statement that will support the draft hybrid bill later this year, but so far there has been little consensus on one of the more strategic issues: will HS2 reduce or increase the UK’s carbon emissions? To examine this question, Greengauge
21 was commissioned last year by the Campaign for Better Transport, Campaign to Protect Rural England (CPRE) and the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds
(RSPB) to identify objectively the key factors that will determine:
(i) HS2’s effect on the UK’s carbon emissions and
(ii) the steps that need to be taken to ensure that a consequence of HS2 is that carbon emissions are reduced.
Our research study concluded that
government’s plans for high-speed rail can help meet carbon emissions targets – but there are certain conditions that must be met. Taking the first phase of HS2 on its
own, we forecast a carbon saving of 0.6 million tonnes of carbon dioxide (CO2e) over the project life. These savings could be quadrupled if government puts in place a wider package of complementary
policies. And the second phase of HS2 will quadruple the carbon savings again. As a starting point, we examined how
the carbon impacts of operating transport services vary by mode of transport, taking on board the latest data on rail operations, car emissions and aircraft operating efficiency. This analysis showed that if HS2 was available for use today, the carbon emissions arising from making a trip by high-speed rail would be about a quarter of those created by making the equivalent journeys by either car or a short-haul flight.
Over time of course, the carbon
efficiency of different modes of transport will change. We can expect the energy efficiency of all modes of transport to improve in response to the challenges
Change in CO2e emissions per passenger-km 2010-2050
gCO2e per passenger-km
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