The Government’s claim that it can achieve a 10% cut in carbon emissions in sectors such as surface transport by 2020 through the ‘decarbonisation’ of vehicles has been dismissed.
The Campaign for Better Transport claimed the Government’s response to the Committee on Climate Change represented a strategy amounting to ‘cross your fingers and hope that everybody buys an electric vehicle’.
Ministers’ response, published in the Budget 2009, announced that the Government would commit itself to reducing emissions by a total of 34% on 1990 levels by 2020.
This entails a 10% cut for ‘non-traded’ sectors, such as surface transport, still viewed as ambitious, given that transport emissions rose by 9% from 1990 to 2006. The Committee on Climate Change said the UK could not rely on changes in vehicle technology to secure the necessary cuts (Surveyor, 4 December 2008).
The Government said in the Budget that it would ‘work towards this goal through incentivising low-carbon behaviour, such as walking and cycling, and providing support for technology innovation’.
But the Campaign for Better Transport said that while the Government had announced £250M in support for low-carbon vehicle development and charging infrastructure, it was yet to commit any funds for promoting low-carbon behaviour, despite evidence on the value of this.
Richard George, the CBT’s roads and climate campaigner, said: ‘If ministers were going to incentivise low-carbon travel, they’d provide councils with proper money for smarter choices measures.
‘If they were going to incentivise low-carbon travel, they wouldn’t allow all but one region to spend more on road building than public transport, and they wouldn’t sit back while the cost of public transport continues to rise.’ The Committee on Climate Change said the DfT would need policies to increase bus and rail travel by 50%, and to double cycle kilometres.
The Department for Transport promises a ‘carbon-reduction strategy’ this summer that ‘will examine the full range of options for putting transport on to a low carbon path, looking at different types of journeys and modes’.
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