How to decarbonise transport

this video was made possible by brilliant more on them later in 2020 it was estimated that at least one tonne in six of global carbon emissions came from transport road vehicles ships planes and trains in order to prevent significant disruption to our planet we must bring Global carbon emissions down to zero which means we need to decarbonize the transport sector which means buy an electric car and don't fly right well yes and also no this is a very complicated problem with a very complicated solution that will vary depending on where you live and how wealthy you are this video isn't going to be a detailed package of solutions but instead an overview of how the international transport Forum or ITF respected multinational research group has proposed and modeled how the world can cut its transport emissions by the year 2050. there are two kinds of Transport moving people and moving Freight these produced approximately equal carbon emissions however as well as considering the two different types of transport it's also helpful to consider three different distance scales traveled Urban moving around within a city into City moving between cities or within rural areas and international moving between countries and moving between continents let's go through how to decarbonize those three scales starting with Urban transport right now two out of every three Journeys made around the world are made within cities and because these are short Journeys they contribute about a third of all passenger emissions depending on how far you're traveling within a city you might walk or cycle take public transport drive your own vehicle or ride share what you choose to do will depend on any number of factors and will vary wildly by City therefore there is no one-size-fits-all approach to decarbonizing city-wide transport each City will be different but here's what will be Universal this Century more and more people will live in cities and so as cities grow it is important to keep Services nearby and keep Journeys as short as possible in other words we want to avoid urban sprawl low density neighborhoods that you have to travel out of to do well anything the first step city planners should keep cities dense as they grow allowing more Journeys to be taken on foot or by bike or electric bike and should build infrastructure to allow this however you're still going to want to travel across the city sometimes and while cycle Lanes will make journeys of a few kilometers more attractive they're not always going to be practical and so we come to the Second Step invest in public transport in many places public transport meaning buses trams Metro Light Rail is seen as a service taken when there is no alternative making buses and trams an attractive high quality service will encourage their use and combined with electrification have many benefits including reduced congestion better air quality and of course lower carbon emissions all of this accomplished because it will make people less likely to drive their own vehicle cars are realistically going to be part of urban life this Century though they produce fully one-third of All Transport emissions so step three we must indeed replace internal combustion engine cars with zero emission Vehicles such as electric cars this can be accomplished in many ways initially incentivizing electric car uptake making them more affordable by for example making them exempt from Road tax and then later disincentivize the use of internal combustion engine Vehicles such as through zero emission zones in City centers this does come with a few problems it's estimated that most countries have less than half the power output required to support electric vehicle fleets in 2030. New Power Generation is needed and of course step 4 New Power Generation needs to be low carbon no point electrifying everything if your electricity Supply comes from fossil fuels but what about Freight transport within cities while you may not think of it cities are nodes in the Global Freight Network they are where the majority of goods end up and as middle classes grow so too will the transport of freight to and within cities this Century for example Urban Freight demand is expected to Triple in East and Northeast Asia by 2050. while the electrification of light Goods vehicles like Vans will be important as will efficiency savings and systems design companies sharing delivery vehicles for example it's expected that significant emission savings can come from step 5 the use of cargo bikes and particularly electric cargo bikes for Last Mile deliveries a trend that's already emerging and will likely become more common City geography depending As Cities become more dense how much carbon do you emit by moving a person each kilometer by car or train or plane well we have data on that specifically in the UK we can see that a petrol car has about four times the carbon footprint per kilometer as an electric car emphasizing the importance of transitioning to electric vehicles again and about five times the footprint of a train the only thing with a greater footprint per kilometer is taking a flight this all becomes relevant when talking about inter-city travel how you decarbonize this kind of travel will depend on how far you're traveling and the geography of where you live if traveling less than 500 kilometers especially in Europe or South Asia you are likely to take the train or drive while if traveling that distance in North America you are more likely to fly or drive with trains unlikely to be an option just as in cities cars will remain a fixture of Transport at this scale particularly when traveling in rural areas so transitioning to zero emission Vehicles is even more important and will require step six government investment in charging infrastructure within communities and on key routes both for passenger transport and for Freight the ITF writes that decarbonizing road Freight has received less attention than passenger transport modes but the ingredients are now in place for a quiet revolution in low carbon Logistics especially in developed markets like Europe electric trucks and other heavy Goods vehicles are likely to be as cheap as their petrol and Diesel counterparts in the 2030s to encourage electrification then which will likely start with lighter vehicles and then scale up to heavy trucks step 7 policies to encourage and facilitate electric Freight such as tax exemptions should be put in place but this leaves the elephant in the room cars and buses and trucks can be made electric trains are already low carbon and where electrified will only become lower carbon what about planes as the most carbon intense way to travel there are many people who think flights over short distances should be banned a ban on flights less than 500 kilometers in length could move nearly 50 percent of all short haul passengers to rail transport by 2050. however this only works if there is a rail alternative so step 8 investment in rail infrastructure especially High-Speed Rail if connecting High population cities and especially in Europe Australia North America and East Asia is vital if you want an example of what's possible here look at China's incredible high-speed rail network making domestic flights largely unnecessary but this simply isn't going to be practical everywhere either in places like the Caribbean Indonesia or the Philippines trains aren't going to cut it much of the time and fairies aren't always practical either flying is here to stay especially when you look at intern National travel now I'm going to preface this by saying that yes there are many places where international travel is Easy by train Europe especially but look at the modes of Transport used when traveling over 3 000 kilometers a distance typically traveled between countries it's dominated by aircraft the ITF modeled how this distribution of Passenger kilometers might change by 2050 this is what it looks like with current transport policies and this is what it looks like with really ambitious policies there simply isn't an alternative to Flying when transporting passengers very long distances so what do we do about Aviation how do we bring its emissions a little over 10 percent of Total Transport emissions down well the first solution is Step nine make some long distance trips unnecessary as the pandemic demonstrated much of what we would previously take a plane to accomplish can now be done by video call between teleworking and raising awareness of the environmental impact of flying we can reduce the total number of Passenger kilometers traveled by air by the current population of course as the global middle class increases in size this Century so too will the demand for flying as such both the ITF and the aviation industry see two ways they can slash the emissions of flying firstly step 10 improve the fuel efficiency of planes by some admittedly optimistic accounts by the ITF improvements including changes to Wing design reductions in taxi time and more efficient engine design could see fuel use per kilometer flown decrease by 57 though I'll believe that when I see it secondly though Step 11 use alternative fuels currently planes overwhelmingly burn kerosene in their engines the aviation industry expects most of their emission cuts to come from sustainable Aviation fuels or safs these are fuels that instead of being made of oil pump from the ground are produced from biomass or synthetically through hydrogen and captured carbon if such fuels could be made they could be used in existing infrastructure and existing planes making their adoption very easy however to say that these fuels are in the early stages of development would be generous whether bio or Electro fuels could be made at scale and made with a sufficiently low carbon footprint either through land use or electricity is simply unknown electric planes may be applicable to some very short distance routes but based on current technology no more than that hydrogen could be used as a fuel source but this is also in the early stages of development and would require additional infrastructure even in the itf's ambitious policy framework hydrogen isn't a factor until the late 2040s Aviation then remains stubbornly difficult to decarbonize safs are unsurprisingly the industry's hope and while underdeveloped could be considered the most realistic of an unrealistic bunch of solutions flying is here to stay but for the time being the best we can do is not do it where possible International Freight is a similar story it's dominated not by planes but by ships if you're moving something other than a passenger between continents you almost always do it by sea and by 2050 we currently expect a 95 increase in international Freight similar to Aviation this simply isn't going to change anytime soon there is no practical alternative to shipping so instead of Reinventing the wheel step 12 improve the fuel efficiency of ships through retrofitting existing vessels and improving the designs of new ships Complicated by the fact that ships tend to be in service for over 25 years again optimistic estimates suggest efficiency improvements of 55 are possible through installing DuckTales reducing operational speed and improved maintenance schedules additionally this may sound familiar Step 13 use alternative shipping fuels this could partly mean wind power but realistically it means similar fuels to those proposed in aviation with all the Associated problems but there is one final strategy that is applicable to both Aviation and shipping and the ITF recommends for decarbonization at every distance scale and that is step 14. carbon pricing this is the idea that if you buy a product or user service that causes the emission of carbon you pay an extra charge proportional to the amount of carbon emitted the theory goes that consumers will prefer to use services with lower carbon Footprints to lower how much they pay and so businesses are economically encouraged to reduce their emissions in a transport context it would for example incentivize Airlines to switch to less emitting fuels to remain cost competitive with Alternatives like rail it would also accelerate the uptake of electric road vehicles exactly how this carbon pricing would be enacted by whom and what price should be set per tonne of carbon is Up For Debate as is how to avoid it unfairly impacting low-income consumers as is whether or not it would actually ever work when enacted by governments but in the itf's opinion along with suspending tax breaks for shipping and Aviation carbon pricing is an effective tool to decarbonize transports especially stubbornly difficult to decarbonize long distance transport in the absence of better options this may prove decisive and where were the money generated by this carbon pricing go well it could go to governments to pay for steps 1 to 13 in decarbonizing transport it's almost like the ITF thought of this clearly this is a complex problem as the distance traveled increases it gets harder and harder to reduce emissions but strategies exist at every distance scale and for passengers and for Freight together we think they're enough the international transport Forum modeled steps 1 to 14 in a high ambition policy scenario and estimated that even considering growing population demand and Associated social changes transport emissions can be cut to around one quarter of current Levels by the year 2050. more emissions Cuts than even the 1.5 degrees Target of the ipcc requires we have the ideas and much of the technology now governments must be bold plan into the future invest in the tech decide on a course of action and provide the solutions it doesn't need to happen all at once even the highly ambitious modeling assumed that policy would change slowly over decades but it does need to happen step 15 in decarbonizing transport is starting now something else you can start now is using your phone to improve your understanding of the world around you learning about statistics or physics or computer science you can do so with brilliant who have kindly sponsored this video brilliant.org is an educational app and website designed to help students and young professionals reach their goals in maths science and computer science whether you're a stem student looking for a fun way to supplement their learning in the classroom or simply someone who wants to keep their mind active and learning new things brilliant has courses and guided learning paths for you there are thousands of lessons ranging from foundational to graduate level are interactive beautifully Illustrated and cover topics ranging from geometry to Vector calculus gears to relativity if you found this video interesting you'll enjoy their series of lessons on infrastructure including the physics of airplanes and modeling traffic jams as fluid flows this isn't an app that makes you memorize answers through bite size lessons it actually helps you understand the topics and improves your intuition and problem solving techniques if I was in school right now I would absolutely be using brilliant to support my learning in maths classes to get started today head to brilliant.org Simon Clark Linked In the description and get a 30-day free trial the first 200 of you to do so will also get 20 off a premium annual subscription that's brilliant.org Simon Clark to supercharge the way you look at the world with thanks to brilliant for sponsoring this video and for continuing to be well brilliant as already mentioned this video is overwhelmingly based on the international transport forum's 2023 Report with some information from the 2022 report and from drawdown edited by Paul Hawkin links to all those are in the description I'd recommend you give them a read for detailed sets of proposals to enact the changes described in this video this video also wouldn't have been possible without the support of two groups of people first of all Andy Sam and ferox for their assistance in capturing game footage frankly I think it was any excuse to play open TTD and secondly my patrons these lovely people are my executive producers and have a say in one video topic a month if you would like to support my work get exclusive behind the scenes Vlogs and have a say in what videos I make consider supporting me on my patreon that just leads me to say thank you very much for watching if you'd like to watch something else please check out the videos on the screen right now and I'll see you in the next one

Channel: Simon Clark

Views: 66,842

Keywords: drsimonclark, dr simon clark, simonoxfphys, simonoxphys, transport, carbon, electric cars, trains, planes, shipping, freight, logistics, flying, aviation, SAFs, sustainable aviation fuels, ITF, International Transport Forum

Id: rhNlFiCmVyg

Length: 17min 46sec (1066 seconds)

Published: Sat Jun 24 2023