TEPR Projects: Low carbon transport

Transport contributes around one quarter of the economy’s greenhouse gas emissions, which contribute to climate change. Most of the greenhouse gas emissions that are emitted from transport are carbon dioxide (CO2) and reducing these is proving to be a challenge.

There are many different policies that can contribute to reducing transport’s CO2 emissions, many of which are complementary. In order to implement the right combination of measures, it is necessary to understand how different policies work together and what the wider impacts of implementing these policies might be.

Ian Skinner and TEPR have worked extensively on low carbon transport at a strategic level, including:

• Decarbonisation of EU Transport, which was undertaken for the European Parliament’s Transport Committee. This report involved an extensive literature review and policy analysis, including recommendations on future policy action.
• Towards the decarbonisation of the EU’s transport sector by 2050, which was the final report of the first ‘EU Transport GHG: Routes to 2050’ projects undertaken for the European Commission. The project involved literature reviews, extensive engagement with stakeholders and quantitative and qualitative analysis, including the development of an illustrative scenarios tool. More details on the first and second ‘Routes to 2050’ projects can be found on the respective TEPR project pages.
• Knowledge Review of the Social and Distributional Impacts of DfT Climate Change Policy Options, which was undertaken for the UK Department for Transport (DfT). This report included a review of literature, and qualitative assessment of the potential social and distributional impacts of selected transport policies that might be implemented to reduce CO2 emissions. Further information can be found in the report’s Appendices 1-8, 9 and 10.
• Options for reducing CO2 emissions from UK road transport to 2020 and beyond, which reviewed the measures that might be introduced to reduce CO2 emissions from UK road transport.

Ian Skinner is also the author of the chapter on the EU’s policy on reducing CO2 emissions from transport, published in the Research Handbook on Climate Change Mitigation Law (Edward Elgar, Cheltenham, 2015).