Mobility and Pollution problem in Europe – see what OPTIMUM POPULATION TRUST SAYS!

Key points

Rising fossil-fuel consumption for transport by growing populations is environmentally unsustainable.

Air travel is increasing so rapidly that population decrease would make little difference to aircraft emissions in the short term. Other measures to curb flights would be more effective. Long-term global population growth of 2.3 billion by 2050, however, given worldwide aspirations for long-distance travel, would increase the rate of air travel growth beyond safe emissions limits, so population decline would have a positive long-term effect.

Road transport growth is more closely related to population size, so population decrease in both developed and developing countries would make a significant contribution to curbing traffic growth.

If you take away the 1.4 billion population increase by 2050 (from 2007) which could be prevented if the world’s mothers voluntarily reduced average family size statistically by half a child, road travel could be cut by 10,768 billion passenger-kilometres a year – the equivalent of driving round the world nearly 269 million times.

In the UK a gradual reduction in population from its 2002 level, when OPT first recommended a policy of 0.25% annual decrease, would have led to some 11 fewer million vehicles on British roads at 2006 levels of vehicle ownership than if population continued to rise at an average of 0.45% a year.

EARTH: MORE PEOPLE, MORE FLIGHTS, MORE CARS, MORE EMISSIONS

1. HUMANS FLY AND DRIVE – SO POPULATION NUMBERS COUNT

It is now widely accepted that to prevent the build up of dangerous greenhouse gas concentration levels in the atmosphere – and to prevent a global temperature rise of more than 2^oC from 1990 levels – worldwide CO2 and other greenhouse gas emissions need to be reduced by at least 60% from their 1990 levels by 2050 – much sharper reductions than those prescribed by the Kyoto Protocol. Transport is one of the major contributors to greenhouse gas emissions, but measures to reduce emissions will be constantly undermined by increasing numbers of flyers and drivers – human beings – unless efforts are made to reverse population growth.

Among transport contributors, air travel is the fastest growing sector and the most damaging to the atmosphere: one return trip from London to Miami, according to Friends of the Earth , produces more carbon dioxide than the average UK motorist’s road mileage over a whole year. And because air trips are usually less essential than road trips, air travel can be more easily reduced in the short-term by carbon trading mechanisms, taxation and methods other than reversing population growth. Reducing road transport is less easy to reduce because road journeys are often essential – for example, for people to get to work where there is no alternative public transport system. What are the projected increases in air and road traffic to 2050, with world population set to climb another 2.5 billion?

1.2 WORLD AIR TRAVEL

In spite of rising fuel costs, the recent rapid rise in worldwide air travel shows no sign of stabilising. Global traffic increased by 7% in 2005 according to the Global Market Forecast 2006-2025 published by aircraft manufacturers Airbus, and is expected to grow by 4.8% a year to 2025 even with jet aircraft growing in size by a fifth and able to carry more passengers per flight. The main drivers of air traffic growth will be the emerging markets which are “regional economic powerhouses with large populations.” With India (population 1.1 billion) and China (1.4 billion) aspiring to western travel habits, the prospects for emissions reductions are stark. Every US citizen makes an average of 2.2 trips a year, while in India only one in 44 of the population flew in 2006. But if each of the USA’s 300 million people halved their flying, the saving would soon be wiped out by air travel growth in the high-population developing economies. China is expected to account for 0.15 trips per capita by 2020, and in India air travel is growing at 20% a year. There’s a demographic difference between India and China – China’s population is forecast to stabilise at 1.6 billion, due to its one-child family policy in the twentieth century, while India’s may expand by another 500 million by 2050 – more than the number of flyers in the whole EU 25.

By the end of 2006 the EU (population 471 million) had taken a lead over other continents. It is considering proposals to include aviation in a carbon trading scheme, though it was not clear if the scheme would apply to all flights in and out of the EU25, or eventually be limited to intra-EU flights.

Whether air traffic growth worldwide will continue at the same rate from 2025 to 2050 is uncertain, because new low-emission liquid fuels such as bio-kerosene are not yet available for aviation use. Some scientists maintain that the dangerous climate change ‘tipping point’ is lower than 550ppmv of carbon dioxide concentrations, so severe and lasting damage to the atmosphere will have already taken place by 2025.

1.3 WORLD ROAD TRAVEL

In 2000 about one in nine of the world’s 6.1 billion people owned a car or van. According to the Mobility 2030 report by the World Business Council for Sustainable Development, 750 million light-duty vehicles (LDVs) occupied the world’s roads in that year, with LDV numbers growing at 2% a year. With the average driver notching up 9,400 kilometres a year, a total 6,423.9 billion kilometres were covered worldwide as people enjoyed the mobility made easy by cheap fuel. But LDVs now contribute about half the transport sector’s C02 emissions, and by 2050 there could be two billion personal and transport vehicles on the roads, with the world’s drivers projected to be covering more than a total 70,000 billion km a year – if there is still available fuel. Transport’s resource ‘footprint’ will grow as transport-related materials use, land use and energy use all increase, according to WBCSD’sMobility 2030 report. Limiting C02 emissions from cars to zero is feasible, but “even under optimum circumstances, achieving this goal will take longer (probably quite a bit longer) than two or three decades.”

ECO-CARS ON THE WAY? Small electric cars are already available which, if powered by renewably-generated electricity, make a real difference to road transport emissions. But hydrogen-powered cars are far from making a contribution. In December 2006 BMW unveiled “the world’s first production-ready hydrogen-powered” saloon car. The BMW Hydrogen 7 drives 20.3 miles per gallon on petrol and 21.3mpg equivalent using hydrogen fuel, emitting 332g/km C02 using petrol but just 5.2g/km using hydrogen. An encouraging development, but the new BMW is a heavy car that is likely to cause fairly high emissions levels in production, and to make any difference to overall emissions levels the hydrogen fuel needs to be produced from renewable sources. At just under £100,000 in the UK for the first model, it would also be affordable by only a few.

Changes which will help to reduce greenhouse gas emissions per passenger kilometre include new technologies such as lower fuel consumption, hybrid-electric propulsion systems, fuel cells, biofuels, lower vehicle weight and reduced aerodynamic drag. Technology is improving, with hybrid petrol/electric cars already in use and the possibility of mass production of near-zero emission cars by 2025 (excluding emissions from all stages of materials procurement, manufacture and assembly). Whatever the advances in technology, there may be a gap of a decade from widespread mass production to widespread mass ownership, because most drivers cannot afford to replace their cars after less than five years’ use. Cars powered by fuel cells charged by renewable electricity are also being developed, but there is scepticism that hydrogen cars will reach safe mass production quickly or provide an easy solution – fossil fuels are still needed for the fuel cell/hydrogen production process. What is also important to take into account is the amount of fossil fuel or non-fossil fuel energy inputs required to produce renewable transport energy outputs. (See articles in the OPT Journal.)

Meeting transport greenhouse gas emission reduction targets may be insuperable if population continues to grow by nearly 80 million a year, unless more and more of the world’s people are to remain in ‘mobility poverty’. Imagine the difference that better family planning and population policies would make. An expected world population of 9,100 million in 2050, it is estimated, would drive 70,000 billion kilometres a year – a more than tenfold increase. The number of passengers makes a difference, as well as the type of car they drive and distance they cover. If you take away the 1.4 billion population increase by 2050 which could be prevented (see Earth ) if the world’s mothers voluntarily reduced average family size statistically by half a child, road travel could be cut by 10,768 billion passenger-kilometres a year – the equivalent of driving round the world nearly 269 million times.Add in the benefits from reduced congestion in overcrowded cities, and the population factor becomes even more important.

UK: MORE PEOPLE, MORE FLIGHTS, MORE CARS, MORE EMISSIONS

2.1 AIR TRAVEL AND POPULATION GROWTH

Domestic air, road, rail and shipping transport in the UK pumped a total 152 million tonnes of carbon into the atmosphere in 2004 – nearly a quarter of all UK emissions. Aviation is the fastest growing source of greenhouse gas emissions – between 1990 and 2004, emissions from aviation fuel use more than doubled, according to DEFRA, and this increase did not reflect the additional damage caused by emissions released at high altitude. UK airports handled 3.7 million flights and 229 million passengers in 2005, a staggering 76.4% increase in passengers over the decade 1995-2005. Given plans for large-scale airport expansion, the aviation sector’s plans to limit climate change impact by halving CO2 emissions per seat kilometre between 2000 and 2020 and reduce nitrous oxide emissions by 80% at the same time would, even if achieved, be outpaced by air traffic growth and current plans for large-scale airport expansion (see Sustainable Aviation.) “Without swift action to curtail aviation growth,” according to the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research, “all the other UK sectors will have to almost completely decarbonise by 2050 to compensate….Results show that [based on worldwide contraction and convergence of emissions] at an annual growth rate of only half of that experienced by UK aviation in 2004, the UK’s aviation sector accounts for 50% of permissible emissions in 2050 under the 550ppmv regime, and consumes the entire carbon budget under the 450ppmv level.” Stabilisation of carbon dioxide at 450ppmv is believed necessary to restrain temperature increase to two degrees above base level, and 550ppmv is believed to be the tipping point into dangerous climate change.

UK air traffic is expected to double by 2030, but population to grow by “only” 6.5%. So changes other than population growth are the main cause of rising UK air travel emissions – cheap air fares and the UK’s growing role as an air transport hub. Because air travel is price-elastic for non-essential journeys, it can be reduced by including aviation in carbon trading systems and applying taxes to curb demand by raising fares. Chancellor Gordon Brown made a first move to green taxation in December 2006 by doubling the fuel duty per passenger to £10 for short flights and £40 for long-haul flights. Britons are among the world’s most frequent flyers, however, and it remains to be seen whether a £20 increase on a long-distance holiday costing £1,000 will stabilise and reduce UK air emissions without tougher measures being introduced. And potential new flyers are now being added to the UK population at the rate of nearly a million every three years. So full are the skies above Britain that planes may have to be rerouted over eight Areas of Outstanding Natural Beauty and the Brecon Beacons National Park, among the few areas of Britain where tranquillity can still be found, according to the Campaign to Protect Rural England.

What effect would a decrease in UK population make? It would help to reduce aviation emissions by curtailing the number of travel-hungry British flyers. Population decrease would also free up land areas and housing so that people could move further away from airport noise and pollution without the need to concrete over quiet countryside.

2.2 ROAD GRIDLOCK ALREADY HERE, AND MORE TO COME

From 1950 to 2005 UK population grew by a fifth – more than 10 million. Back in the mid-twentieth century, our roads carried just one vehicle for every 12 people, but now there is one for every two of the 60.5 million inhabitants of the UK, and in 2004 road transport accounted for 13% of all carbon emissions. By 2006, 33.3 million licensed vehicles were competing for space on Great Britain’s 388 million kilometres of congested roads. Cars, lorries, van, buses, coaches and taxis clocked up a total of 499,400 million km in 2005, nearly 10 times the distance driven in 1950 – and the distances travelled in England alone are expected to be 29% higher in 2010 than in 2000. But in a tiny, overcrowded island, it should be no surprise that space to expand the road network is scarce, with the marginal cost of land also rising: road capacity barely changed from 1995 to 2005. UK population density is the third highest in Europe (the EU 25). Recent reports show UK traffic congestion to be the worst in Europe, with alternative rail trave the most expensive and overcrowded European. Overpopulation raises the cost of scarce land and is one factor behind mounting gridlock: estimates for the cost of a 53-mile widening of the M1 motorway in 2004 were £35.85 million a mile. Meanwhile the distances driven have grown 16% [DfT Transport Statistics 2006]. Chart 2.2. below show the actual and projected population and traffic growth from 1990 to 2020.

CHART 2.2

Car occupancy rates in Britain have hardly changed in the last decade, and congestion charging appears to have made little difference to congestion: average traffic speeds on trunk roads and motorways fell between 1995 and 2003, and were lower in London in 2000-03 than in 1980-82. For more recent figures see Transport Trends 2008. Proposals to introduce congestion charging more widely are not likely to do more than slow the rate at which congestion increases, solving only the symptoms and part of the cause. By introducing fees for previously free services congestion charges increase the cost of mobility and reduce real per capita wealth. By 2004 congestion on the roads was already costing the UK £20 billion a year, according to the RAC Foundation – £330 a year per capita per year.

Nor will the atmosphere comfortably absorb the extra emissions generated by further growth in road transport: carbon dioxide emissions from private cars grew 8% between 1990 and 2003 while road traffic volumes grew 17%, and, according to Friends of the Earth, average carbon emissions from new cars sold decreased by barely 10% between 1995 and 2005. The greening of road transport is being constantly undermined by the arrival of more people, driving more cars and travelling longer distances.

2.3 GOVERNMENT ROAD TRANSPORT POLICY

The environmental effects of increasing UK car use include atmospheric pollution in cities (parts of London in 2005 had pollution levels above the legal limits set by the EU in spite of the introduction of congestion charging). They also include increasing noise pollution across most parts of the country – few places remain free of background noise from roads. Traffic congestion on UK roads, however, causes economic costs as well as environmental costs. UK traffic growth results from a combination of continuous population growth and rising prosperity (more car users and more mileage per driver within a densely populated and finite territory), and failing public transport. So bad have traffic jams got that the government has abandoned its 10-year Transport Plan, recognising that it would fail to meet its target to cut traffic congestion by more than 6 per cent between 2001 and 2011.

THE DENSITY FALLACY UK transport policy is beginning to switch from a predict-and-provide road-building programme to attempts to curb traffic by road pricing and other taxes. There is still an apparent belief, however, that increased population size will (if the additional 10 million people expected by 2074 are accommodated in high-density developments) reduce transport needs if concentrated at higher population densities. This is true up to a point – if there is good local public transport available – but it brings with it a lack of freedom to move further afield, which many feel to be a deterioration in their quality of life. Population size is a bigger determining factor than population density: Norway’s dispersed 4.7 million people drive fewer total kilometres than the UK’s 60.5 million people, and China’s 1.4 billion people will soon dwarf the UK’s road transport use.

In June 2005 Transport Secretary Alastair Darling admitted that changes to road transport policy were needed to prevent ‘complete gridlock’, and unveiled proposals to replace fuel tax and possibly road tax with a satellite-operated, distance-based road charging system which would cost motorists up to £1.30 a mile to use UK roads. The rate would be varied according to time of travel and routes used, to encourage motorists to avoid peak travel times and busy roads. Pilot schemes are planned before wider introduction in 2020-2030. The Treasury-backed Eddington Transport Study of 2006 estimates that the benefits of road pricing would reach £28 billion a year by 2025. Seen as a tax, the proposed national charging system is meeting fierce resistance from voters who have no real alternative way to travel – travelling by rail is also becoming more expensive, with further fare rises in the pipeline, and a combination of savage cuts in the national rail network in the 1960s and suburban sprawl caused by population growth means that millions of commuters do not live within easy distance of a railway station.

The government has introduced its first green taxes to make drivers switch from high-emission to low-emission cars. In November 2006 Chancellor Gordon Brown raised the price of the “tax disc” (annual vehicle excise duty) on the most polluting categories of car to a top rate of £215 from the standard £175, and a decline in sales of SUVs indicates that drivers have taken notice of both rising taxes and the unpopular environmental profile of urban gas-guzzling cars.

3. NEEDED: A POPULATION POLICY TO SUPPORT TRANSPORT POLICY

No mention has been made by the government of the need to reverse its pro-growth population policy, which is constantly increasing the number of people in the UK, and therefore the number of potential drivers and vehicles on the roads. UK population has already grown by half since 1900 and more than a fifth between 1950 and 2006. Our numbers are being allowed to increase by more than 320,000 a year and are officially projected to grow by a further 10 million by 2074 – unless action is taken to reverse the trend. Ten million more people, at current ownership rates, means more than five million more cars, with greater envronmental damage as well as rising congestion costs to the economy. The additional population would also mean covering an area greater than London with housing and other types of infrastructure, effectively removing this area from existing transport use or pushing up the price of land to levels where the public transport projects needed to reduce road transport become unviable.

Gridlock is here – so why allow the UK to become even more crowded. Will anyone be able to move in a country with 70 million people and 40 million cars? Why not stabilise population and allow it to reduce gradually, supporting sustainable transport policies rather than undoing them?

4. THE TRANSPORT BENEFITS OF POPULATION DECLINE

Chart 4.2 below shows that a population decrease of 6.7 million from its 2002 level of 59.3 million (when OPT first recommended a policy of population decrease), to 52.6 million in 2050, at the 2006 vehicle ownership rate, would have removed about a million vehicles from the the UK’s congested roads by 2050. In the four years that have passed since, population, vehicle ownership and distances travelled have all continued to rise. To achieve the same 2050 result starting from 2007, the rate of population decrease would have to be more steep.

CHART 4.1

CHART 4.2

If the ratio of licensed vehicles to the population per capita were to change from its 2006 level, or the average distance travelled per capita, these projections would need to be altered accordingly.

MORE INFORMATION Road transport in the UK accounted for consumption of 38.1 million tonnes of oil in 2005, compared with 28 million tonnes in 1970, with rail transport accounting for 0.8mt (1970: 1.2mt); water transport 1.3mt (1970: 1.3mt); and aviation 12.5mt (1970 5.2mt). <[2005 figures from Table 3.1, Transport Statistics Great Britain 2006, DfT] Thirty per cent of people in England and Wales are adversely affected by noise from road traffic. [Trend 8.7a, Transport Trends 2004, Department for Transport, 2 December 2004] Greater car use is increasing carbon emissions [Independent Transport Commission, an independent think tank]. This is exacerbated by the catalytic converters now used on cars to curb emissions of gases such as carbon monoxide, nitrogen oxides and volatile hydrocarbons – they convert these harmful gases into ‘less harmful’ carbon dioxide, water and nitrogen. The Advisory Committee on Business and the Environment maintained that road transport carbon emissions will reduce slightly from 31Mt (megatonnes) in 2000 to 29Mt in 2010 and 24-31.4Mt in 2020, due to the take-up of greener cars. This compares with the government’s Climate Change Programme forecasts of 37Mt in 2010 and 42Mt in 2020. Expectations of clean-energy motor transport are over-optimistic. For example, hydrogen power requires other sources of energy to produce the hydrogen. See OPT Journal, April 2002: Verdict on the Hydrogen Experiment. Road journey times rose by an average of more than 16 per cent between 1998 and 2002. A journey from London to Leeds which took 2hrs 40 mins in 1998 was forecast to rise to 3hrs 33 mins by 2006. [Trafficmaster]. The £5.5 billion road-widening plan for Britain’s major roads announced in December 2002 was not expected to ease congestion unless charging is imposed. [Commission for Integrated Transport] Increasing traffic congestion is partly caused by a haphazard spread of low-density housing which makes the provision of convenient public transport difficult and uneconomic. As population and urban sprawl increase, so do the distances and hours travelled by shoppers and commuters. Yet: Planned transport investment could create super-suburbs 100 miles or more from cities, swallowing up more villages and countryside. [Independent Transport Commission, October 2002] It has been calculated [Halcrow engineering consultancy, 2002] that Britain would need 1,000 miles of new motorways and dual carriageways to cater for traffic growth by 2031, to absorb projected traffic increase of 46 per cent [RAC]. (These calculations were based on demographic forecasts that are now known to have underestimated population growth.) This would fill 25 square miles of countryside.

See Sustainable numbers for suggested starting points on which global population policy studies can be based,Fertility for suggested family planning and reproductive health policies, Migration for migration policies, andPopulation policy projections for a demographic alternative for the UK.

Optimum Population Trust Ltd, 12 Meadowgate, Urmston, Manchester M41 9LB, UK
Tel: 020 8123 9116    email: info@optimumpopulation.org