51 DRIVING Change
Our continuing and growing dependence on heavily polluting modes of transport is one of the biggest drivers of greenhouse gas emissions. What initiatives are being taken to reduce this environmental impact, and what more needs to be done?
BY DR LEE CHAPMAN AND DAVID JAROSZWESKI
have made it arguably the highest pro- file unsustainable sector and has conse- quently attracted significant interest in political agendas and public discourse. It has been estimated that transport cur- rently contributes 23 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions (GHGs), of which roughly two-thirds originate in the wealthier 10 percent of countries. Al- though its importance was highlighted in the 1997 Kyoto Protocol, a globalized economy and increased personal wealth have sustained its recent trajectory in the developed world and fueled rapid growth in emerging economies. This continuing and growing de-
T
pendence on heavily polluting modes of transportation has made the sector a high priority for the development of mitigating actions designed to reduce its environmental impact. It is clear that current transport operations are unsus- tainable and essential measures need to be taken to significantly reduce its contribution to global emissions. A bilat- eral approach is required, utilizing both improvements in technology and eco- nomic instruments to reduce the impact of the most polluting forms of transpor- tation. To achieve this it is essential to identify which modes of transport are the least sustainable, how their emis- sions can be reduced, and what alterna- tive modes exist.
he contribution of transporta- tion to greenhouse gas emis- sions, its dependence on fossil fuels, and its forecast growth
X X greenhouse gases comes from road trans- port. It is estimated that road transportation contributes 74 percent of total transport CO2
emissions. Furthermore, a distinc-
tion must be made between road freight and car transportation. Increased mate- rial consumption and globalization has led freight to grow more rapidly than passen- ger transport, now utilizing approximately 43 percent of all transportation energy, the greatest stake of any mode. Recent developments within the in-
dustry and the wider economy offer pos- sible routes through which emission re- ductions can be achieved. For example, recent dematerialization (the reduction in the physical mass of products) can be further encouraged by policy, which should reduce freight activity. Better en- gines have increased fuel efficiency by 20 percent since 1980, continuing with the introduction of new fuel technologies such as hydrogen cells. Furthermore, ad-
ROAD TRANSPORT - FREIGHT Currently the greatest contribution of
ditional improvements of 15–20 percent can be achieved through simple initia- tives to ensure that vehicles are oper- ated in a fuel-efficient manner, such as increasing the proportion of deliveries made at night. A switch to larger trucks using improved logistics and sustain- able distribution may also yield envi- ronmental benefits. Indeed, technology will become increasingly important; soft- ware-based routing and scheduling has the potential to yield distance savings of around 10 percent. However, technology alone will not
stop the growth in road freight, and it is this expansion that needs to be target- ed if a return to sustainable levels is to be achieved. A logical solution for long distance inland freight transport is a shift to the use of rail, which produces just 20 percent of the CO2
released when
moving goods by road. It is also impor- tant to use a logistical decision-making framework which affects the numbers,
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