Greener Vision TKH Page 3

Enabling and encouraging current and future generations to thrive free from owning a car

Published on: 10th September 2021 by Anna Rothnie.

Few things astound me more than the fact that there are approximately 1.4bn cars in the world. That’s 1.4bn 1.5-ton machines made of metal, plastic, rubber, 99% of which are still fuelled by petrol or diesel. With approximately 5 seats per car there is enough capacity to carry around 7.5bn people. The global human population…

It’s time to put a price on carbon

Published on: 8th September 2021 by Stephen Glaister CBE FICE FCGI.

In the first of the Rising to the Challenge webinars I listened to my esteemed colleagues in the transport planning and policy professions discuss how best the nation might respond to the government’s Decarbonising Transport[1]. It was a good discussion but I could not help wondering if we are trapping ourselves into making it all…

It’s the (economy) everything, stupid

Published on: 7th September 2021 by Paul Campion.

It’s the economy everything, stupid How much transport is in your sandwich? All transport planners are taught on the first day of transport planning school that ‘transport is a derived demand’ and the public debate is beginning to recognise that our personal travel patterns are, to a large extent, designed into our built environments: famously…

Jet zero: pie in the sky?

Published on: 2nd September 2021 by Inga Aryanova.

Can we really decarbonise aviation by 2050? The Government’s Jet Zero consultation thinks not, but we should be able to offset the residual emissions. Aviation is one of the hardest sectors to decarbonise: the expected lifetime of aircraft is over 25 years, new aircraft designs take around 10 years and the potential range of low…

Decarbonising transport outside cities: it is possible, let’s get on with it

Published on: 31st August 2021 by Stephen Joseph.

Any discussion about transport and decarbonisation provokes a common response: that while it might be possible to decarbonise transport in cities, outside these there is no alternative to cars for any of the journeys people make and that any attempts to reduce car use outside cities are unrealistic and doomed to failure. This is not…

Transport decarbonisation and the role of land-use planning

Published on: 26th August 2021 by Victoria Hills MRTPI FICE.

The transport sector is the most significant contributor towards the UK’s greenhouse gas emissions. However, while other sectors such as energy generation have drastically reduced their emissions over the last 30 years, the transport sector has made little progress towards decarbonisation. So what more needs to be done? Significant behavioural shift The RTPI believes that…

Are you sitting comfortably? The tale of the hedgehog, the fox, the owl and the ostrich.

Published on: 24th August 2021 by Jillian Anable.

BBC online has recently released a series of short video think pieces under the topic ‘How easy is it to predict the future?’ It asks some very pertinent questions such as: ‘Is trying to predict the future a waste of time?’ or ‘Are artists or scientists better at future predictions’ and, my particular favourite, ‘Are…

Is this Government serious about Decarbonising Transport?

Published on: 19th August 2021 by Dr Steve Melia.

Is this government serious about decarbonising transport, or is their Decarbonisation Plan just political hype? I was reflecting on that as I prepared to give evidence to the planning inquiry into North Somerset Council’s refusal to allow Bristol Airport to expand. Ironically, their attempts to fudge the issues around aviation may have inadvertently strengthened the…

Transport decarbonisation cannot be left to the transport sector

Published on: 17th August 2021 by Professor Peter Jones, OBE.

Pressure is rightly placed on the transport sector to eliminate the large volumes of carbon dioxide it emits annually, from vehicle emissions, carbon released during vehicle construction and that embedded in the supporting infrastructure. We recognise, on the supply side, that meeting this zero-carbon challenge requires close collaboration with a wide range of industrial partners…

Dancing with tears in my eyes

Published on: 12th August 2021 by Glenn Lyons.

This article is about the IPCC’s new report on climate change, the UK’s Transport Decarbonisation Plan and Ultravox. Anxiety and the state of science In the arms of my wife and with my six year-old son down the hallway, I eventually slipped into sleep on Sunday 8 August 2021 wrestling with climate anxiety as I…

Midlands Connect – Developing a regional strategy for transport decarbonisation

Published on: 5th August 2021 by Maria Machancoses.

When Coronavirus forced us all to stay in our homes and the world ground to a halt in March 2020, like so many of us, I watched with fascination as nature appeared to heal itself before our eyes. Cars stayed on their drives and train timetables were reduced down to the bare minimum, as offices…

Roads to the future: Using technology to implement road pricing

Published on: 3rd August 2021 by Paul Hirst and Jo-Ann Pattinson.

The growth of zero emission vehicles on our roads is going to lead to a £40 billion hole in tax revenues from lost fuel duty and vehicle excise duty. Replacing petrol and diesel vehicles with electric vehicles does not fully answer the emissions problem. The real (but difficult to confront) solution is: fewer trips by…