The surface transport sector is the UK’s highest emitter of carbon emissions and the only sector where emissions were still rising when we all restricted our movements significantly. As governments and companies plan safe ways to ease restrictions, it is essential that further growth in road-based carbon emissions is discouraged rather than incentivised.  

 

The climate impacts of the surface transport sector and how to tackle them are unmistakably complex. I’ve witnessed many discussions around action to address transport emissions end unproductively because of the fixation on finding the perfect solution to solve 100% of the problem. An alternative would be to focus on how we use known solutions to address 50% of the sector’s emissions and then use these early efforts to map next stages of actions to address the remaining half of the problem. 

 

There is a vast array of known sustainable transport measures that haven’t been implemented at scale due to not being a priority, especially outside of major urban centres. The social, health and economic benefits of these known measures get overlooked because:

 

1.     They aren’t specific to transport, urban planning, economic planning projects or policies and don’t neatly fit into currently defined sectors. Under the current planning and governance structures, there is a lack of ownership and accountability which hinders these integrated and cross-disciplinary measures from moving forward. 

 

2.     Impact is difficult to predict for every specific place. Willingness to experiment is a prerequisite for success and this is a major barrier for true innovation in the planning and infrastructure world. We like to be safe and sure before fully investing. A more effective approach would be to take incremental risks, increase trials and test their impacts.

 

3.     The impact of these measures is largely indirect and context-sensitive. They enable behavioural change, create awareness, question established norms and perceptions. The path to sustainable transport requires behavioural and lifestyle changes driven by an informed balance between convenience and consumption.

 

If there is a climate emergency and transport is the largest single contributor to greenhouse gas emissions in the UK, then these known, overlooked measures are actually now critical to the national net-zero carbon agenda. Meeting the UK’s net zero carbon commitment doesn’t require an entirely new set of solutions, but more so a different framework for prioritising investment and actions. Finding ways to provide people with better information and incentives to travel sustainably, halting decisions that contradict principles of sustainable planning are steps we can take now to progress towards zero carbon transport. 

 

 

Link: new report