Giulio Mattioli @giulio_mattioli@urbanists.social@giulio_mattioli
Nov 24, 2022
6 tweets
Why are transport emissions so hard to reduce? Because improvements in the energy efficiency of vehicles and the carbon intensity of energy are compensated by the growth in travel activity. It really is as simple as that.
Aurélien Bigo@AurelienBigo
Nov 24 22
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Paper "Transport emissions trends in the EU. Which factors? What are their impacts since 1995?"
A decomposition analysis (demand, modal shift, energy efficiency, carbon intensity) showing the challenge for EU to meet its climate target for transport 
enerdata.net/publications/e
enerdata.net/publications/e 
When sustainable transport experts say: "technology is welcome but it's not going to be enough unless we do some travel demand management as well", this is what we have in mind.
And no amount of pundits going on about how any form of travel demand management is obviously taboo is going to change this hard reality - *even if you assume that they are right*
And TBC "travel activity growth" does not mean people are making more trips (they aren't) or spending more *time* travelling (they aren't). It means that they are covering *longer distances* (with roughly the same amount of time & trips)
And AFAIK most empirical studies that have looked into this question have concluded that electrification won't be enough on its own to meet climate targets unless we do something about travel demand as well
Disclaimer/caveat: I wrote "emissions" in the first tweet but I really meant "CO2 emissions". It's different for different pollutants twitter.com/CornieHuizenga
Cornie Huizenga
@CornieHuizenga
Nov 24 22
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See our 2030 forecast for Asia which confirms what @Giulio Mattioli @giulio_mattioli@urbanists.social says BUT look at transport related PM10 which continues to decline not withstanding growth in transport activity. In that case technology has decisive impact.
asiantransportoutlook.com/analytical-out
Giulio Mattioli @giulio_mattioli@urbanists.social
@giulio_mattioli
Transport researcher with views on + than 1 topic - 🇪🇺🇮🇹 citizen with views on + than 1 country. Used to be in 🇬🇧. Now at @TU_Dortmund 🇩🇪. Views my own
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