Transport Policies and Climate Change

There is a lively debate on the need to address the challenges of climate change, and of the role that transport should play, as it accounted for about 25 per cent of UK energy consumption, 27 per cent of greenhouse gases (GHG) and 29 per cent of CO₂ emissions in 2005 (Department for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra), 2006, p61). The UK government has been positive about being able to meet its share of the EU Kyoto Protocol targets for CO₂reductions (12.5 per cent from 1990 levels by 2008-2012), and it has gone further in a Climate Change Bill to propose legally binding reductions of 26-32 per cent by 2020.