Climate Change, Impacts, Future Scenarios and the Role of Transport

This working paper is based on research undertaken for the project: Behavioural Response and Lifestyle Change in Moving to Low Carbon Transport Futures funded by the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research. This project is examining the changes that may be required in both the way people travel and how much they travel in order to achieve deep cuts in CO2 emissions. This paper reports on the first phase of this project, where the aim has been to establish appropriate targets for CO2 reductions in the transport sector.

To this end five key studies containing future scenarios for the UK with a focus on carbon emissions have been reviewed. This review was used firstly, to establish two targets for overall reductions in emissions to achieve stabilisation at 550ppm and 450ppm of atmospheric CO2. Secondly to consider the proportion of total emissions that would be attributable to transport in the future. Two approaches were used: as now and an increase in line with forecasts. Finally, the targets and proportionate contributions were used to derive targets for transport sector emissions to be achieved by 2050. These targets range from 8.2MtC to 25.7MtC and even the weakest of these targets represents a significant reduction from current emission levels.