Is Scotland Good to Go with its Transport Decarbonisation Plans?
At our lunchtime webinar on 1st December (12:30-13:45) we will discuss what needs to change for Scotland to achieve its decarbonisation aims. David Metz will summarise the findings of his recently published book “Good to Go – Decarbonising Travel After the Pandemic“. David is an honorary professor in the Centre for Transport Studies, University College London, where his research focuses on how demographic, behavioural and technological factors influence travel demand. He spent part of his career as a senior civil servant in a number of UK government departments, both as policy advisor and scientist, including five years as Chief Scientist at the Department of Transport.
Following David’s presentation we will discuss the Scottish transport decarbonisation setting David’s question “Are we Good to Go?” against the May 2022 Scottish Government programme set out response to scrutiny by the UK Climate Change Committee of its plans including:
- Decarbonisation of vehicles and infrastructure on Scotland’s roads and railways in the decades ahead.
- A stronger focus on place based strategies to encourage a higher proportion of trips to be made by walking and cycling
- Rapid expansion of zero emission vehicle fleets on public service delivery.
- Increased use of taxation and investment to embed reductions in travel demand.
- Support for public transport and shared mobility sectors to recover from the pandemic including reducing the cost of public transport.
- Plans to decarbomise scheduled flights (though Scottish Government were unable to support the CCC recommendation for an air travel demand management approach)
What will the Scottish public accept? Could Scotland’s road pricing legislation be used to supplement existing UK fuel and taxation approaches? If everything in the current Scottish plans was achieved would we achieve travel decarbonisation?
To book a place at the webinar please e-mail us. The webinar will be held on the Zoom platform and details of how to join the meeting will be sent in advance of the webinar.
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The paper David describes in his presentation on satellite navigation is here https://ucl.scienceopen.com/hosted-document?doi=10.14324/111.444/ucloe.000034