University of Oxford’s economic policy professor Sir Dieter Helm said eliminating climate impacts will be “far more demanding than thinking it is all about building some wind turbines and solar panels and buying an electric car”.

He told attendees to zero emission vehicles group the Zemo Partnership’s annual conference on Tuesday that “you and I must look deeply into our own personal carbon diaries to see how we can change our ways for the better”.

“When it comes to transport we have real choices, and the first choice is whether to travel at all,” he said. Professor Helm added that in considering how to get to work, people should think about walking, cycling or using public transport rather than taking a private car.

But he acknowledged that in many places public transport is currently “not very well provided, there isn’t much of it, it isn’t very conveniently placed and it is not really designed to enable the country to decarbonise”.

Switching to electric cars alone will not achieve net zero, he added. “It may after 60 or 70,000 miles be ‘carbon better’ than a conventional small petrol car, but it is a matter of relatives not absolutes.”

He added that carbon consumption needs to be more realistically priced across the economy and noted that currently “we are living beyond our sustainable means; we are over consuming relative to the true cost of the things that we consume”.

Greener Transport Solutions chief executive Claire Haigh agreed with the need to focus on carbon consumption “and that means travelling less or changing how we travel”.

She told the event that there is “a lot to celebrate” about the Government’s Transport Decarbonisation Plan – published last week – but she warned that the plan “perpetuates the myth that we can continue our current lifestyles unchanged”.

Targets for modal shift are also needed, she urged, as well as road pricing to help ensure electrification of the car fleet does not lead to increased congestion, damage public transport networks and leave the Treasury with a £40Bn ‘black hole’.

Vehicle manufacturer Ford Mobility’s city engagement director John Lippe said behavioural change “is absolutely part of the solution” to decarbonising transport but emphasised: “Technology is a significant part of the answer and there is an opportunity for the automotive industry to really move the needle in terms of carbon.”

Zero emission commuting specialist Mobilityways’ chief executive Ali Clabburn welcomed the Transport Decarbonisation Plan’s focus on the need for employers to report on their commuting emissions.

“If your employer encourages walking and cycling, you’re more likely to do it than if the Government does it,” he said. He also welcomed emphasis on increasing vehicle occupancy on buses and in cars.

Mobility firm Arrival’s director of development Michael Hurwitz (formerly of Transport for London) also highlighted as “critical” the need for behavioural change to mitigate the climate crisis and urged that complacency must not kick in on the push to net zero. “Steps we are taking now are in the right direction, but we have to keep pushing further.”

The event also saw the publication of a survey by Zemo, which shows that 58% of respondents believe behaviour change will deliver greater or equal carbon reduction compared to technology.

Nearly 70% of those surveyed think they will be able to cut their household's carbon emissions from travel to zero (or near zero) by the Government’s 2050 target date. However around 15% believe this is unrealistic.

For the latest updates and commentary from CIHT's Route to Net Zero project, please see here.

(Photograph: nrqemi - Shutterstock)

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