Transcript Ton Sledsens. Vice-President T&E

European Federation for Transport & Environment
Sustainable Investment
The need for an Integrated
Policy in the Transport Sector
Ton Sledsens. Vice-President T&E
Conference Investing in Sustainable Development,
Dublin, 1-2 February 2004
Transport, one of the keys to quality of life
Positive
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Provides freedom
Economic and employment development
Social cohesion
Living conditions
Negative
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Environmental impacts
Health effects
Living conditions
Reduced accessibility
Nature and landscape impacts
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Are current developments in Transport positive ?
European Environmental Agency:
27 indicators on sustainable development:
6 indicators lack sufficient data
8 indicators have not shown progress
13 indicators have become worse !
ZERO indicators show sufficient improvement
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sustainable development in transport ?
Facts:
190
EU CO2 emissions,
1990-2000
index 1990=100
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EU- target 2010: - 8 %
To date: transport +22 %
Estimate 2010 by DG-TREN:
without policies : + 41 %
170
150
130
EU,ALL minus
transport
EU transport
EU aviation
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110
90
Socially sound development in Transport ?
current trends
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Families have to spend by times more then 50% extra from their
household budget on transport, compared to 20 years ago
Social exclusion of those who can’t use a car
Areas split apart by infrastructure
Hospital concentrations, out-of-town-stores, etc leads to
accessibility-poverty, especially for the underprivileged
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more mobility
better accessibility
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Economic sound development in Transport ?
Transport leaves unpaid bill for others to ‘pay’
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758 billion euros in 1995, or 9.7% of GDP
92% of these costs are caused by road transport
Consequently
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Current prices in transport are to low and thus
transport is too costly because
there is an artificially too high demand for roads
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Sustainable Economy and Transport
The findings of SACTRA, Transport and the Economy
(UK-government advisory body)
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Imperfect markets and prices lead to market failure
Breaking the cycle of ever increasing Transport Growth could
benefit rather then harm the economy.
Further example: transport is like electricity a production-cost: Per
euro earned, some member states use three times as much
transport as others.
Results from the Netherlands, study shows:
Differentiated kilometre charge would benefit the Netherlands by
700 million Euro, each year. Investing in road building to achieve
similar congestion relieve would cost many billions over the next two
decades.
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Conclusion: Good investment policies require
good pricing policies
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Sustainable investments in EU-transport
DOs
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Base decisions on Integrated Cost-Benefit Analyses per
project
For BIG plans, like the T-TENS make a SEIA for the
networks, and adjust investments accordingly
Invest in modal shift towards sustainability
Remove counter productive subsidies
Make the economy less transport dependent :
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Invest in Transport efficiency increasing projects
Invest in accessibility :
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R&D, Pilots, Best Practices, information sharing, Projects
Sustainable investments in EU-transport 2
Don'ts
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Continue on a business as usual scenario
Thus: Implement a winning CO2 strategy !
 Thus: Rework the Growth Initiative and the T-TEN’s
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Wait with the necessary pricing policy
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Let prestige-projects drain the funds from small-scale
innovations
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Thus: adapt the current Eurovignet-proposal
Thus: adapt the EU-rules (TEN’s, Structure funds) to allow
smaller scale projects
Give future generations our ecological, social and
financial bills.
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Back from the future: Where it all started...
OK, we all agree !!
Lets make
investments
sustainable !!
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European Federation for Transport & Environment
Thank you for your attention. Further
information can be found at our website.
Ton Sledsens
T&E is Europe’s primary NGO campaigning on a
Europe wide level for an environmentally
responsible approach to transport. [email protected]
Boulevard de Waterloo, 34 | 1000 Brussels
Tel.: +32(0)2-502 99 09 | Fax: +32(0)2-502 99 08 | www.t-e.nu