Transport emissions cuts
Deputy Leddin said transport would miss emissions targets unless both incentives and penalties were used. The Minister said transport was the hardest sector and outlined a four-part approach: cleaner fuels, modal shift, reduced demand and wider policy change.
Yesterday, the Government published its summary report on the sectoral emissions ceilings for the two carbon budgets that have been agreed through to 2030. It is clear we have a huge challenge ahead of us in all sectors but I want to speak about transport. The climate action plan has a transport section and there is some really good stuff in it in terms of getting more people onto public transport and more people walking and cycling. However, we could do all of that and still not get the transport emissions reductions we need. Unless there is both the carrot and the stick, we probably will not hit the 50% target to which we must get. We need to talk about a national modal shift target and demand management, by which I mean congestion charging, road space reallocation, parking levies and all the things that were talked about in the past. Unless we talk about them seriously now, we will not achieve our emissions reduction targets.
Comment on this
I think transport is going to be the most challenging when it comes to energy, such is the scale of investment going into alternatives. It is the same with land use but, in that case, I believe the market will bring us a long way towards where we need to go. In transport, however, it is difficult because we are dealing with patterns that have been baked in more than 50 or 60 years of dispersed settlement.
We will do this in four ways: by switching fuels towards electricity and those types of biofuels I mentioned earlier; shifting towards public transport, active travel and walking; reducing the overall volume of travel by promoting the town centre first policy and having more concentrated development which makes better use of oil resources; and by shifting to car sharing, recognising that most vehicles are parked for 95% of the time. Regarding how we will deliver these outcomes, the Government's approach of providing for active travel in the budget and aiming to switch towards a 2:1 ratio of investment in support of public transport is the correct way to go. I do not believe that a congestion charging system would be as easily introduced. I think we are right to promote BusConnects in all five cities as a way to promote this urgent modal shift.