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Copenhagen update: climate-change mitigation and transport

While climate-change negotiation is mostly about absolute mitigation targets, and the money flow between countries, more specific policies appear under the code word of NAMAs (nationally appropriate mitigation actions), and at various side events of research institutions and international agencies. Beside avoiding deforestation, transportation is one of the crucial issues.

Here is why: in Europe, a cap exists for industry and the electricity sector but not for the transport sector. In fact, emissions from the transport sector are rising. There is no chance that Europe will meet any ambitious post-2020 Kyoto targets without reigning in emissions from the transport sector. The same is true for US, where emissions from transport constitute an even higher percentage of overall emissions.

Emission-wise of higher importance is the rising affluence and motorization of Asian cities. While currently car ownership is relatively low, the bulk of upcoming individualized motorization is expected to come from developing countries, at least doubling the current number of cars on the road, from 1 billion to 2 billion.

What can be done about it?

Let’s start with the OECD perspective, particularly EU/US. A presentation by Ottmar Edenhofer from the Potsdam Institute of Climate Impact Research (PIK) and myself addressed the question of how to set a cap on transport emissions, and potentially include transport into an intersectoral emission-trading scheme. “Broad is beautiful” in the sense that increasing coverage decreases abatement costs – even if a high-cost sector joins the scheme – and is superior to separate emission trading schemes. However, as also pointed out by Bracken Hendricks, from the Center of American Progress, and Thomas Becker, head of policy relations of BMW, complementary policy instruments, such as fuel efficiency standards, are required to realize abatement in transportation.

For low-carbon development in Asian cities, the community focuses on the so-called Avoid-Shift-Improve approach. Of particular importance is the “avoid” part here: the dense urban fabric shall simply be retained and modernized but not erased in favor of broad motorways (presentations on this topic, including my own, can be found here). This automatically favors the most environmentally friendly modes: walking and cycling. In this sense spatial planning, and clever land-use taxation, can provide multiple benefits, from climate change mitigation to improved accessibility, and reduced air pollution. Such measures work best as part of policy packages, i.e. together with investments in public transit, and restriction of car use. Half-baked measures will not work. It is not clear how the benefits of these policy packages can be quantified, and be included in some sort of extended policy CDM. Perhaps, one should rather focus on capacity building and leveraged financing and grants via international funding agencies.

In the side-event of the ‘Bridging-the-Gap’ initiative, whose purpose is to get transportation into a post-Copenhagen treaty, climate ambassadors from Costa Rica, South Africa, France and South Korea gave excellent statements on their perspective on transort and climate. As a highlight the chief negotiator of Costa Rica explained the transport issue in depth, emphasizing the status dimension of the automobile. In fact, on their way to carbon-neutrality in 2021, Costa Rica understands the transport sector to be the major challenge.

Posted by Felix Creutzig on December 11, 2009 10:46 AM | Permalink