Reducing greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from US transportation industry
Reducing greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from US transportation industry has become a central topic within transportation planning and climate action planning circles. This is due to the large percentage (27%) of GHG emissions the transportation industry contributes to the overall US economy. (Greene & Plotkin, 2011) In 2011, Greene and Plotkin were charged with the task of preparing GHG reduction solutions for the Pew Center on Global Climate Change. Their scope was to conduct a study and propose policy efforts and developing technologies to help reduce greenhouse emissions on a global scale. One of the early considerations Greene and Plotkin identify is that the world is developing and lesser developed jurisdictions will start consuming carbon based fuels at higher rates than what the global economy currently is faced with. Due to this principle national economies including the US will start competing with increased demand for fossil fuels and unknown changes in supply. One of the reasons why this is such an important facet to consider is that when fuels experience more demand or shortages of supply alternative fuels are sought after. They identify early that without proper policy in place the global economy replaces fuel supplies with alternative fuel types. However, the alternative fuel types are usually the cheapest types of fuel allowed and those fuels can be inferior from an efficiency standpoint thus contributing more GHG emissions.
The authors discuss technologies solutions mostly focused around fuel types such as hydrogen, natural gas, and electric as well as technologies such as automation of personal vehicle and truck transport. Personally, I felt the technology section of the study was fairly aspirational for two major reasons. 1) Some of the technologies included and advocated for such as natural gas may have potentially large environmental consequences for example during extraction. 2) Considers more generally, the idea that developing technology is sometimes politicized as a silver bullet when in reality a more conservative approach to the development times of technology is more appropriate.
The authors discuss a number of policies and implications on the way people transport. Some of the most interesting to me include carbon emission pricing strategies and moving towards compact development. I agree with the notion carbon pricing is a good way to hold people accountable environmental externalities. However, due to historic unfair planning and development practices which lead to wealth creation among white population it seems unfair to tax all users the same for carbon considering there is not a level transportation playing field. Regarding land use policy, due to the nature of this document being prepared for a national/global audience there were no specific land use policies other than the tired mixed-use strategy. However, I was excited to see there analysis showed transportation and land use policies at the local level coupled together showed a higher yield in reductions of GHG emissions and may help with system efficiency rather than when they were developed individually. I thought this was a very good way to show the limitations of city government silos.
This reminds me of the recent news about California banning new gas-fueled car by 2035. The thing is in order to make such a change happen, the government and the car manufacturers must work real hard to build new infrastructures and increase the output, which would be a large input. But they also need to keep price low enough so that consumers would have the incentive to change .
ReplyDeletePhilp Longenecker
ReplyDeleteThanks for this post, Greg. Its interesting that land-use and transportation policies coupled together resulted in the best GHG emissions. I wonder how we might introduce land-use decision making power to transportation departments? In my experience, transportation departments are pretty reactive to developments - simply calculating the expected transportation demand loads of the new development and responding with new infrastructure investments rather than looking at their system and forcing the land-use world to only build in a way that complements existing infrastructure.
The main question I'm left with is: how much capacity do modern day transportation departments have to shape development patterns proactively without being reactive to them?
Philp Longenecker
ReplyDeleteThanks for this post, Greg. Its interesting that land-use and transportation policies coupled together resulted in the best GHG emissions. I wonder how we might introduce land-use decision making power to transportation departments? In my experience, transportation departments are pretty reactive to developments - simply calculating the expected transportation demand loads of the new development and responding with new infrastructure investments rather than looking at their system and forcing the land-use world to only build in a way that complements existing infrastructure.
The main question I'm left with is: how much capacity do modern day transportation departments have to shape development patterns proactively without being reactive to them?
Philp Longenecker
ReplyDeleteThanks for this post, Greg. Its interesting that land-use and transportation policies coupled together resulted in the best GHG emissions. I wonder how we might introduce land-use decision making power to transportation departments? In my experience, transportation departments are pretty reactive to developments - simply calculating the expected transportation demand loads of the new development and responding with new infrastructure investments rather than looking at their system and forcing the land-use world to only build in a way that complements existing infrastructure.
The main question I'm left with is: how much capacity do modern day transportation departments have to shape development patterns proactively without being reactive to them?
Philp Longenecker
ReplyDeleteThanks for this post, Greg. Its interesting that land-use and transportation policies coupled together resulted in the best GHG emissions. I wonder how we might introduce land-use decision making power to transportation departments? In my experience, transportation departments are pretty reactive to developments - simply calculating the expected transportation demand loads of the new development and responding with new infrastructure investments rather than looking at their system and forcing the land-use world to only build in a way that complements existing infrastructure.
The main question I'm left with is: how much capacity do modern day transportation departments have to shape development patterns proactively without being reactive to them?