Date published: 2008/11/24
The BBC says:
UK transport emissions could be cut by a quarter by 2020 if the government shifted its policies, a report claims.
The Campaign for Better Transport study urges ministers to focus on the biggest possible savings - by tackling lorries, vans, and long-distance commuters.
It also proposes an extra tax on air passengers, with proceeds redistributed among the entire population.
The government says it is moving freight off roads, and helping people make greener local travel choices.
The report says that by 2020, the government could achieve emissions cuts of 26% on 2006 figures.
This is broken down as:
However, the report says government attempts to make people who drive children to school feel bad about causing climate change have been misdirected.
- Reductions in passenger travel emissions of 32%
- Freight emissions reduced by up to 19%
- Cars 25% more fuel efficient
- Car traffic reduced by 15%
- Domestic aviation emissions down 30%
Using the government's own figures, it shows that the school run accounts for just 4% of the UK's passenger-transport carbon emissions.
Another terrible BBC article, which just reads like a press release for the so-called Campaign for Better Transport, one of the zillions of special interest pressure groups which plague the nation. Like most such special interest pressure groups, the name is misleading. In the same way that Transport 2000 should be called Transport 1950, here the Campaign for Better Transport should be called the Campaign for Worse Transport, or more fully, the Campaign that Hates Cars and Planes. But of course they are not unique in that respect, since most of the academic middle class, including most BBC journalists, hate cars and planes (except for their own use, of course, since they are important). It is not very surprising that articles like this pass muster on the BBC website.
It's quite touching that the report tells us not to worry about the school run, which accounts for "just 4%" of passenger-transport emissions. Yet we are supposed to get hysterical about domestic aviation, which accounts for about the same percentage. And of course you can slice the pie any way you want, and if you introduce enough categories, then nothing accounts for a great percentage of anything. And in the case at hand, domestic aviation serves some purpose. The school run serves no purpose. It would be far better for everyone if kids got to school by their own means (e.g. walking, cycling or by bus), just like in the "good old days". That would be an instant 4% savings on passenger-transport emissions, which is nothing to snear at.
And the problem that all of these kinds of anti-car and anti-aviation reports have is that driving is the only economic activity in the country which already pays completely (indeed, vastly over-pays) for its actual and environmental costs. And aviation is not far behind. It is train passengers, in particular London commuters, who have successfully externalised a huge chunk of cost onto the rest of society. And these reports always say (as this one does) that that subsidy should be increased even more. What a "sustainable" lifestyle that is.
In the case of cars, the report offers the usual panoply of academic middle class ideas. So they want to limit car parking in new developments, which works ok in academic middle class developments like BedZed (in south London), but meanwhile back in the real world most people want to have a car. Of course the academic middle class thinks that it knows best how people should get from A to B.
And they want a "slow down in road and runway capacity increases". Well this is a bit of a joke. The roads in Britain are barely fit for life in 1980, never mind life in 2008, and hardly any capacity is being added. And hardly any runway capacity has been added in decades (although perhaps by some miracle the extra runways at Heathrow and Stansted will eventually get built).
Of course the report does mention some carbon emission savings that are not just blatantly anti-car and anti-aviation. For example, cars will get more efficient (surprise) and "active traffic management" might make traffic flow better (although the example on the M25 stretch near Heathrow doesn't seem to work very well).
All in all this report, even in the few bits that make sense, has nothing original or innovative to say to the people of Britain.
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