Low carbon transport strategy in Europe: A critical review

Emberger, Guenter

doi:10.1080/15568318.2015.1106246

Cited by 30 publications

(13 citation statements)

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“…The main changes in our lifestyle that are required in order to limit the damage of climate change, are well understood and there is, for example, consensus that our current form of mobility and reliance on fossil fuels is unsustainable. The realisation of greener lifestyles, however, is proceeding slowly and has been facing stagnation for decades: Per capita consumption of meat continues to increase [1], commercial aviation is the fastest growing source of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions [2], the carbon footprint of global tourism is increasing faster than anticipated [3], private car usage is on the rise and an overall higher energy consumption in the transport sector [4] are a few of the identified trends in an individual's carbon emissions.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Threat and Anxiety in the Climate Debate—An Agent-Based Model to Investigate Climate Scepticism and Pro-Environmental Behaviour

Kapeller

Jäger

2020

Sustainability

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In order to meet the challenges of sustainable development, it is of utmost importance to involve all relevant decision makers in this process. These decision makers are diverse, including governments, corporations and private citizens. Since the latter group is the largest and the majority of decisions relevant to the future of the environment is made by that group, great effort has been put into communicating relevant research results to them. The hope is that well-informed citizens make well-informed choices and thus act in a sustainable way. However, this common but drastic simplification that more information about climate change automatically leads to pro-environmental behaviour is fundamentally flawed. It completely neglects the complex social-psychological processes that occur if people are confronted with threatening information. In reality, the defence mechanisms that are activated in such situations can also work against the goal of sustainable development, as experimental studies showed. Based on these findings, we propose an agent-based model to understand the relation between threatening climate change information, anxiety, climate change scepticism, environmental self-identity and pro-environmental behaviour. We find that the exposure to information about climate change, in general, does not increase the pro-environmental intent unless several conditions regarding the individual's values and information density are met.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Threat and Anxiety in the Climate Debate—An Agent-Based Model to Investigate Climate Scepticism and Pro-Environmental Behaviour

Kapeller

Jäger

2020

Sustainability

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“…The transportation sector is one of the largest emitters of GHG [2], despite advances in the field of engine technology and improvements in fuel quality. This sector accounted for 25.6% of global energy consumption in 2015, and transportation energy use is expected to increase by 1.1% every year until 2040 [3].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Specifically, by 2020 this practice is expected to produce significant energy savings in Spain of 493 ktoe (5.5% of the total estimated savings for the entire transportation sector) and to avoid emissions for a value of 1703 ktCO 2 . In order to achieve its objectives, the plan lays down some clear guidelines to encourage the rational use of transport modes and to promote demand management policies for route optimization and efficient driving.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Green Eco-Driving Effects in Non-Congested Cities

et al. 2017

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Despite technological advances in engines and fuels, the transportation sector is still one of the largest emitters of greenhouse gas (GHG). Driving patterns, including eco-driving techniques, are a complementary measure for saving GHG emissions. Most eco-driving studies so far have been conducted in large cities suffering chronic congestion problems. The aim of this research is therefore to analyse the potential of driver behaviour for reducing emissions in a small non-congested city. Driver performance parameters such as travel speeds, number of stops, revolutions per minute, and maximum acceleration-deceleration are also studied. The methodology is designed to measure the effect of both eco-driving and eco-routing under real traffic conditions. A campaign was carried out in the city of Caceres (Spain) to collect data on various types of roads under different traffic conditions. This research concludes that eco-driving leads to CO 2 savings on all routes and road types of 17% in gasoline engines and 21% in diesel, although travel times are increased by 7.5% on average. The shortest route is also the most ecological, regardless of the traffic volume and characteristics, implying that consumption in non-congested cities depends mainly on distance travelled rather than driving patterns in terms of number of stops, speed and acceleration.

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“…For these reasons, many researchers have criticized the technology-oriented policy setting of the EU and pointed out the important role of regulatory demand-and supply-side policies in order to reach the CO 2 reduction goals (see, e.g., Emberger, 2015;EEA, 2008;Parry et al, 2014). In contrast to relatively 'hard' traffic restraint policies in the central areas of cities (see Elmberg, 1972;Buehler and Pucher, 2011;Fernandes et al, 2014;Zhou et al, 2010;Cai and Xie, 2011, for real-world examples), pricing schemes offer a less restrictive and more dynamic opportunity of managing transport-related problems in cities.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Mind the price gap: How optimal emission pricing relates to the EU CO₂ reduction targets

Kickhöfer¹,

Agarwal

Nagel

2018

International Journal of Sustainable Transportation

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From the transport economic literature it is known that optimal pricing of (environmental) externalities improves the urban system. In contrast to theory-based optimal pricing strategies, real-world policy setting often follows so-called 'backcasting' approaches where certain targets are set, and policy measures are implemented in order to reach those targets. An example for the latter approach is the EU goal to reduce global greenhouse gas emissions in the transport sector by 20% until 2020 with respect to 1990 levels. This paper aims to (i) compare optimal pricing and backcasting approaches for a specific case study in a simulation environment by identifying the contribution of each approach in EU's 2020 emission reduction target, and (ii) to determine the costs required to reach the desired targets. For this purpose, an optimal emission pricing strategy is applied to a real-world scenario of the Munich metropolitan area in Germany. The highly differentiated tolls relate to individual exhaust emissions, i.e. they are calculated using damage cost estimates from the literature and vary over time of day, with traffic situation, and with 1 vehicle type. The results indicate that the desired reduction in CO 2 emissions is not reached for optimal pricing approach, and that the initial damage costs estimates need to be multiplied by a factor of 5 in order to reach the target, yielding a price of 350 EUR/ton CO 2. When aiming at a decrease of the overall emission costs by 20% (CO 2 and local pollutants), the initial cost estimates need to be multiplied by a factor of 10. Furthermore, it is shown that the major contribution to the overall emission reduction stems from behavioral changes of commuters and reverse commuters rather than from urban travelers; under some circumstances, urban travelers even increase their CO 2 emission levels. Hence, the study rises awareness that conflicting trends for different types of pollutants and different types of individuals are very likely: an increase in NMHC levels for urban travelers and freight depicts that pricing emissions does not necessarily result in a reduction of all pollutants or of the emissions levels of all travelers. It is shown how agent-based simulations can be used to provide valuable insights and decision support in such possibly counter-intuitive situations.

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Low carbon transport strategy in Europe: A critical review

Cited by 30 publications

References 1 publication

Threat and Anxiety in the Climate Debate—An Agent-Based Model to Investigate Climate Scepticism and Pro-Environmental Behaviour

Threat and Anxiety in the Climate Debate—An Agent-Based Model to Investigate Climate Scepticism and Pro-Environmental Behaviour

Green Eco-Driving Effects in Non-Congested Cities

Mind the price gap: How optimal emission pricing relates to the EU CO₂ reduction targets

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Low carbon transport strategy in Europe: A critical review

Cited by 30 publications

References 1 publication

Threat and Anxiety in the Climate Debate—An Agent-Based Model to Investigate Climate Scepticism and Pro-Environmental Behaviour

Threat and Anxiety in the Climate Debate—An Agent-Based Model to Investigate Climate Scepticism and Pro-Environmental Behaviour

Green Eco-Driving Effects in Non-Congested Cities

Mind the price gap: How optimal emission pricing relates to the EU CO2 reduction targets

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About

Mind the price gap: How optimal emission pricing relates to the EU CO₂ reduction targets