This chapter sets the scene and explains the relevance of the analysis presented in this report. It explains how diverse pathways to net-zero differ in the level of certainty they bring for achieving net-zero targets on time, as well as in the synergies and trade-offs they offer with other environmental and social goals. It also explains what transformational pathways to net-zero are and why these are needed.
Transport Strategies for Net-Zero Systems by Design
1. Introduction
Abstract
Planetary emergencies such as climate change require bold and rapid action. The scale of the challenge “demands a step change in both the breadth and scale of ambition” (UK Department of Transport, 2020[1]). An important limitation for scaling up the ambition is that most climate action today focuses on incremental change in the systems that underpin our modern economies and societies. In other words, climate action all too often aims at optimising individual components within these systems rather than transforming the systems themselves, which are unsustainable by design.
A focus on optimising parts leads to net-zero pathways and climate strategies that place an overriding focus on technological change to drive the transition; assigning a marginal role to reducing demand through transforming systems, and leading to incremental, rather than transformational, change (see Box 1.1). Strategies in the transport sector are good examples of this, as most strategies to reach net-zero carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions prioritise policies that will improve vehicle performance in car-dependent systems. The expectation is that technological change (mostly at the level of the vehicle) will offset emissions related to large and growing demand for mobility.
Following such an incremental approach to designing pathways to net-zero (and the strategies to implement them), entails high risks for reaching net-zero targets on time, and thus the Paris Agreement’s temperature goal. It also leaves huge untapped potential for addressing other pressing challenges (e.g. health, equity, etc.). Physical constraints on how quickly durable assets (including cars) can be replaced in high-demand systems (e.g. car-dependent transport systems), along with uncertainties about the capacity to scale up several technologies in the future (e.g. hydrogen, or advance biofuels, as well as for carbon dioxide removal) (Buckle et al., 2020[2]) may well mean that climate targets are missed. Research carried out by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change suggests that rapid growth in energy and materials demand – including as a result of transport systems through increased vehicle use – reduces the chances of achieving stringent mitigation targets (IPCC, 2018[3]). In addition, such an approach may exacerbate other environmental and social challenges (e.g. creating large impacts from mining for batteries and increasingly reducing travel options).
A strong focus of climate action therefore needs to be on redesigning systems so that – in their functioning – they require less energy and materials, and produce less emissions1 while improving wider well-being goals (Buckle et al., 2020[2]; OECD, 2021[4]). In other words, climate action, and pathways towards net-zero, should aim for transformational change in the systems themselves (see Box 1.1). While also requiring significant technological innovation, development and deployment, this transformative approach to achieving net-zero systems can help countries to achieve more stringent mitigation action in the short term while also reducing the risks and trade-offs implicit in an approach dominated by supply-side technological developments. By embedding equity and other well‑being considerations (e.g. health) in the efforts to redesign systems, transformational pathways can make politically difficult policies (e.g. carbon pricing due to equity concerns) more feasible (Buckle et al., 2020[2]), while ensuring that both climate and wider well-being outcomes (e.g. Sustainable Development Goals) are delivered by design.
Unfortunately, in addition to focusing on parts, using the wrong proxies for progress has often led to leaving unquestioned the desirability of high (and growing) demand systems. Moreover, the underpinning demand‑side changes involved in transformational approaches, including in behaviour, are often not well represented in dominant approaches to energy modelling, which tend to further reinforce the idea that a growing demand (be it of mobility or consumption more broadly) is inevitable and exogenous from the systems’ design. As this report highlights, there are also measurement biases that reinforce approaches that are over-optimistic concerning what technological change can achieve and at what pace. This may have led to an under appreciation of the potential and benefits of so-called low‑demand scenarios (Grubler et al., 2018[5]).
This report builds on previous work (see Box 1.2) and applies the OECD Well-being Lens2, a process to support countries in triggering transformational climate action, to the surface passenger transport sector (excluding water transport). The objective is to identify policies for the transport sector that can ultimately contribute to transformational pathways leading to net-zero societies by design.
The report focuses on urban settings (accounting for approximately 40% of total passenger transport emissions),3 and emphasises the need to include whole cities and their commuting zones4 in policy considerations. Policies related to inter-city and international travel, as well as the relationship between transport solutions for interconnected urban and rural areas, are beyond the scope of this report. The reduction of car dependencies in urban areas discussed in this report, however, is fundamental to promoting sustainable modes for inter-city travel, and numerous potential synergies can be made between policies and infrastructure for urban and non-urban trips.5 The improvement of metropolitan governance and strategic planning at the functional urban area scale (see Chapter 4), and the use of concepts such as Place Making and Complete Streets in rural territories are also key and discussed throughout the report.
Box 1.1. Distinguishing incremental from transformational pathways
The International Panel for Climate Change analysed four stylised pathways for achieving a 1.5°C goal. A pathway relying on transforming systems in a way that reduces energy and materials demand (P1 in Figure 1.1) increases the chances of achieving stringent mitigation targets (IPCC, 2018[3]) compared to pathways with high energy and materials demand growth. Pathways with high energy and materials demand growth delay mitigation action and rely more heavily on technologically focused approaches to reducing emissions. For this very stringent goal, these pathways also have to deploy potentially controversial and unproven technologies at a large scale to remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere (P2-P4 in Figure 1.1).
Figure 1.1. Pathways to limit global warming to 1.5°C by 2100
Note: AFOLU: agriculture, forestry and other land use. BECCS: bioenergy with carbon capture and storage.
Source: IPCC (2018[3]).
The type of policies being prioritised largely determines the nature of change (incremental or transformational, see below) and of pathways, which ultimately determines the type of system and results achieved. Since evidence suggests that transformational pathways increase the chances of meeting climate goals, identifying which policies can trigger transformational change and pathways (P1-like), and thus lead to net-zero systems by design (i.e. low energy and material demand), is fundamental.
The Well-Being Lens process, further described in Chapter 2, has been designed to help countries identify and prioritise policies that have the potential to transform systems and to increase the effectiveness of climate action. To do so, this report distinguishes policies with the potential to bring about incremental and transformational change.
Most climate action in the transport sector prioritises policies to improve vehicle emissions, which leads to pathways like P4 in Figure 1.1. In these pathways, less emission‑intensive vehicles (i.e. an incremental change to the system) are expected to offset the emissions of an increasing vehicle fleet.1 For the contrary, if policies to reverse car dependency are prioritised in climate strategies, this can lead to transformational change (as the functioning of the system will have changed), contributing to transformational pathways and net-zero systems by design (as car independent2).
Incremental change refers to change to the properties of the parts or elements in a system change that do not affect the way the system functions. For example, most transport and urban systems lead to more traffic, which in turn increases emissions. Climate strategies that prioritise policies to improve vehicle emissions but that are not coupled with policies targeting the dynamics underlying increased vehicle use are an example of climate strategies, which lead to incremental change and P2‑P4-like pathways. Since the system dynamics or functioning remains intact, so do the system’s results. As put by Systems Innovation (2021[6]):
“[T]he unfortunate reality is a traffic jam of autonomous electric cars is still a traffic jam”.
Transformational change refers to a change in the way a system is organised. The “rules of the game” change and the system can thus achieve – by design – different results than those of the previous system. For example, policies aimed at reallocating urban space (see Chapter 3) can change the system’s functioning and lead to disappearing traffic, which is significantly different from the increase in traffic and vehicle use observed in today’s systems. The “rules of the game” are, in this example, the way in which public space is allocated (e.g. roads for car use vs. space for other uses), which can change the attractiveness and competitiveness of private vehicles vis-à-vis other transport modes, and thus influence people’s choices.
“Do we want to spend our time fighting against car usage or do we want to develop a system that truly works better than the car paradigm? A change in parts [incremental change] will do the former, only a change in systems [transformational change] will do the latter. (Systems Innovation, 2021[6])
1. Such policy prioritisation is often informed by misleading indicators on the emissions reduction potential of technologies (see Chapter 6).
2. Car independent systems are those in which a bulk of daily activities can be done without a car or a motorcycle. People only move from less emitting and space intensive modes (e.g. active, then micro-mobility and public transport/ micro-transit) to the more emitting and space intensive ones (e.g. cars or motorcycles), as they make less frequent trips. Car and motorcycle use is reserved for those trips that can create more value than the costs they impose to society (i.e. reserved for specific purposes or circumstances); but they are not systematically the most convenient, nor the only, available option in most places.
Box 1.2. Recent OECD work on transformational policies for achieving net-zero goals
Climate change, and many of the challenges underpinning our current and future well-being, are fundamentally complex in nature (Hynes, Lees and Müller, 2020[7]). Climate change is a systemic problem, generated by the structure of the system, rather than from one or more specific component parts that can be replaced or optimised. Such challenges require innovative thinking and transformational policies.
Accelerating Climate Action (OECD, 2019[8]) set out an approach for integrating well-being and climate mitigation action1 to help accelerate the pace of greenhouse gas emissions reduction while also advancing other crucial agendas (e.g. inequality, health, jobs and environmental quality). The report highlighted the need to rethink what is meant by progress beyond just gross domestic product (GDP) growth and to set criteria to help design, implement and monitor policy in terms of well-being objectives (climate stability included).2 By making the synergies and trade-offs between mitigation and wider well‑being goals more visible, it was argued that climate policies could become “more acceptable, feasible and effective” (OECD, 2019[8]).
Buckle et al. (2020[2]) highlighted risks that countries’ actions to recover from the COVID‑19 pandemic that might run counter to their longer term climate goals. They analysed countries’ actions in two sectors in the context of three stylised recovery pathways (see below). They concluded that a “well‑being” approach would help quantify and make more visible the synergies and trade-offs between different goals, encouraging greater co-ordination and policy coherence. This was seen as crucial at a time when governments need to deliver both climate action and important near-term improvements in well-being (e.g. health, environmental health and reduced inequalities). In the case of surface transport, the report argued for shifting the focus from mobility (physical movement) towards delivering accessibility (the possibility to access places with ease), and shed light on the potential of such a shift to reduce emissions in the short term, and to align the climate and wider well-being agendas (OECD, 2019[8]).
The report discussed three stylised recovery pathways (“rebound”, “decoupling” and “wider well-being”)3 different in the extent to which they reflected climate mitigation and well-being goals. Wider well-being described a recovery pathway that could yield early emissions reductions, enhance the chances of meeting the Paris Agreement’s temperature goal and address key well-being priorities (e.g. jobs, income and health). As discussed in the paper, this pathway could reduce the risks of not getting to net-zero in time, since it would avoid reliance on unproven carbon dioxide (CO2) removal technologies, which could also exacerbate competition for land. A wider well-being pathway could therefore substantially reduce trade-offs with other important Sustainable Development Goals, including biodiversity and food security, compared to alternative recovery pathways (decoupling and rebound pathways). The report also mapped in detail the consistency of COVID-19 recovery measures already announced for the transport and residential sectors with the three stylised pathways, thus advancing the sectoral policy work.
This approach was applied (and developed further) in a project with Israel to support the development of its long-term low, emissions strategy and its medium-term mitigation goals. This work validated the importance of using a well-being lens and resulted in two outputs: 1) a working paper on “Long-term low-emission development strategies: Cross-country experience” (Aguilar Jaber et al., 2020[9]); and 2) a report on Accelerating Climate Action in Israel: Refocusing Mitigation Policies for the Electricity, Residential and Transport Sectors (OECD, 2020[10]).
Building on the work described above, the current report applies the latest version of the Well‑being Lens process to the surface transport sector.
1. The terms climate strategies, climate action and climate policies are used interchangeably throughout this report.
2. Some countries already guide their policy decisions by well-being objectives (e.g. New Zealand) and this has gained momentum during the recovery from COVID-19 (e.g. in Germany and the Netherlands) (Buckle et al., 2020[2]).
3. Rebound would prioritise a rapid re-establishment of economic growth and macroeconomic stability. It would not prioritise CO2 emissions reductions nor progress on wider social or environmental objectives. Like rebound, decoupling is also assumed to be focused on the conventional metric of economic success, i.e. GDP growth. Decoupling, however, represents a significant step towards placing climate change mitigation at the heart of the recovery strategy. Decoupling would restore economic growth and macroeconomic stability and aim for an absolute decoupling of CO2 emissions, i.e. emissions would be flat or falling with positive GDP growth. It would incentivise (incremental) improvements in energy efficiency and a rapid scaling up of low-carbon energy. Wider well-being would integrate economic recovery, CO2 emissions reductions and well-being outcomes. This pathway would prioritise improvements in current well-being (e.g. income, jobs, health, etc.) rather than focusing simply on aggregate GDP growth (as indeed, positive well-being outcomes may not always correlate with GDP) and would take into account the resources needed to maintain well-being over time (e.g. human, physical, natural and social capital). The synergies and trade-offs between these diverse goals are complex and context-dependent, so wider well‑being would encompass approaches that help decision makers to identify, quantify and exploit economically efficient synergies and to manage trade-offs between them.
This report is structured as follows. Chapter 2 defines the outcomes that a sustainable system should achieve, and the importance for policy makers to shift from a mobility‑oriented to an accessibility-oriented perspective to transition to “sustainable-by-design” systems. It also provides a brief explanation of the transport and urban system dynamics leading to car dependency and high emissions, and gives a summary of the policy changes needed to reverse such dynamics. Chapters 3-5 describe these dynamics in greater detail and, based on examples from international practices, illustrate how different policy tools can contribute to changing these dynamics. Chapter 6 discusses the role of improved vehicle technology and pricing mechanisms in transformative climate strategies. Chapter 7 reviews the measures implemented by governments and the rapid changes that resulted from those measures as a response to the COVID‑19 crisis. Chapter 8 concludes.
References
[9] Aguilar Jaber, A. et al. (2020), “Long-term low emissions development strategies: Cross-country experience”, OECD Environment Working Papers, No. 160, OECD Publishing, Paris, https://doi.org/10.1787/1c1d8005-en.
[2] Buckle, S. et al. (2020), “Addressing the COVID-19 and climate crises: Potential economic recovery pathways and their implications for climate change mitigation, NDCs and broader socio-economic goals”, OECD/IEA Climate Change Expert Group Papers, No. 2020/04, OECD Publishing, Paris, https://dx.doi.org/10.1787/50abd39c-en.
[5] Grubler, A. et al. (2018), “A low energy demand scenario for meeting the 1.5 °C target and sustainable development goals without negative emission technologies”, Nature Energy, Vol. 3/6, pp. 515-527, http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41560-018-0172-6.
[7] Hynes, W., M. Lees and J. Müller (eds.) (2020), Systemic Thinking for Policy Making: The Potential of Systems Analysis for Addressing Global Policy Challenges in the 21st Century, New Approaches to Economic Challenges, OECD Publishing, Paris, https://doi.org/10.1787/879c4f7a-en.
[3] IPCC (2018), Global Warming of 1.5°C, Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, Geneva, https://www.ipcc.ch/sr15 (accessed on 16 May 2021).
[4] OECD (2021), “Circular economy – waste and materials”, in Environment at a Glance Indicators, OECD Publishing, Paris, https://dx.doi.org/10.1787/f5670a8d-en.
[10] OECD (2020), Accelerating Climate Action in Israel: Refocusing Mitigation Policies for the Electricity, Residential and Transport Sectors, OECD Publishing, Paris, https://doi.org/10.1787/fb32aabd-en.
[8] OECD (2019), Accelerating Climate Action: Refocusing Policies through a Well-being Lens, OECD Publishing, Paris, https://dx.doi.org/10.1787/2f4c8c9a-en.
[12] Purba, A. et al. (2017), “A current review of high speed railways experiences in Asia and Europe”, http://dx.doi.org/10.1063/1.5011558.
[6] Systems Innovation (2021), Mobility Systems Innovation, Systems Innovation, https://www.systemsinnovation.io/post/mobility-systems-innovation (accessed on 13 August 2021).
[1] UK Department of Transport (2020), Decarbonising Transport: Setting the Challenge, UK Department of Transport, London, https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/932122/decarbonising-transport-setting-the-challenge.pdf.
[11] United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs (2017), World Urbanization Prospects, United Nations, New York, NY, https://population.un.org/wup (accessed on 20 July 2021).
Notes
← 1. Also reducing reliance on CO2 removal technologies. As discussed in Buckle et al (2020[2]), “relying on carbon dioxide removal to offset any overshoot in CO2 emissions is at best a risky strategy, as these technologies are currently not commercially available at scale, may involve difficult trade-offs with other goals and may not be publicly acceptable”.
← 2. By building on systems thinking, the Well-Being Lens allows policy makers to identify policies with the potential to reverse key system dynamics behind high emissions and other undesirable outcomes (e.g. growing inequality, poor health, etc.).
← 3. The United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs estimates that 55% of the population lived in urban settings in 2017, and that two‑thirds will live in urban settings by 2050 (United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs, 2017[11]).
← 4. According to the EU-OECD definition of functional urban areas, cities incorporate an urban centre, defined as “a set of contiguous, high-density (1 500 residents per square kilometre) grid cells with a population of 50 000 in the contiguous cells”, and any contiguous local unit (e.g. municipality, district) that has at least 50% of its population inside the identified urban centre. This scale is thus much larger than inner cities, and includes suburban areas. A city’s commuting zone includes “a set of contiguous local units that have at least 15% of their employed residents working in the city.” Together, a city and its commuting area are defined as a functional urban area.
← 5. For example, (Purba et al., 2017[12])find that having high population density near rail stations and good public transport connectivity to the rail station are key to the success of high-speed rail services in Europe and Asia.