Pulling every lever on transport emissions
Last week a number of transport emission reduction initiatives were caught up in the Labour Government’s “policy bonfire”, including Clean Car Upgrade Scheme, Social Leasing Car Scheme and the shifting of funding for public transport from smaller cities and regions to the five largest. The latter of which appears to mean removal of the Vehicle Kilometres Travelled (VKT) reduction targets for Tier 2 urban areas such as Napier, Hastings, Tauranga, Nelson etc.
In an interview on Morning Report, Prime Minister Chris Hipkins stated that "They (the scrapped policies) were actually going to make a very, very small contribution to our overall emissions reduction targets."
There are a few issues with this statement.
There is no silver bullet…
Firstly, there are no single (realistic) policy or programme that will have significant impact on the overall emissions reductions targets. To achieve our targets as a country, and globally, we must pull many levers, each which make small contributions which add up to something greater.
For transport, these levers (broadly speaking) are:
Electrifying more of the vehicle fleet
Improving the average fleet age for better fuel efficiency and intensity
Reducing the size of the light vehicle fleet
Reducing total amount of driving (VKT) through mode shift to active and public transport
Reshaping our towns and cities to deliver access to daily needs through proximity rather than mobility.
The policies to deliver those outcomes can be debated to some extent, but to achieve the overall target of a 41% reduction in transport emissions of the Emissions Reduction Plan requires going as far as we can we all of the above.
All three policies which are “in the bonfire” would have contributed to those outcomes and had other benefits. To say we can afford to not have those “very, very small contributions”, when the government is actively increasing emissions with the extension of the fuel subsidy, seems to be a miscalculation or complete misunderstanding of the scale of the challenge we face.
If you are keen to explore this more, jump over to Transport2035, a interactive dashboard where you can toggle the outcomes above and see the emissions impact on our projected 2035 emissions at a regional level. It’s a great way to understand the scale of the challenge with transport emissions.
Equity
The rising cost of driving with transport being included in the Emissions Trading scheme, along with changes to the transport system to deliver emissions reduction, are likely to be of greatest financial impact for those on lower incomes. The proposed initiatives, particularly the social leasing scheme, were of greatest benefit to people on low incomes and far greater benefit than the existing Clean Car Rebate scheme.
Investing in active and public transport is fantastic for people with low incomes. It reduces the need to own a car or multiple cars per household, which have high up front and maintenance costs. However, generally speaking, most households are still likely to need a car, particularly in smaller towns and cities for the foreseeable future. That’s where the Clean Car Upgrade Scheme or “cash for clunkers” scheme, works well. It provides incentive to get some of our highest polluting (and least safe) vehicles, which tend to be driven by people on low incomes, off the road and giving those people cash in return to by a more modern lower emissions vehicle.
No, it is not a silver bullet, but the case from an equity perspective is strong for supporting a shift to more fuel efficient and lower emissions vehicles, as well as safer vehicles. From an emissions perspective the Clean Car Upgrade Scheme, assuming a $5000 subsidy per “clunker” traded in, could have got just over 113,000 of our highest emitting vehicles off the road and replaced with a lower emissions vehicle.
This decision also concerns me because it was recently reported that Clean Car Rebate scheme, which is meant to be self-funding through fees on the import of high polluting vehicles, has a shortfall of nearly $100m. While the fees on high polluting vehicles could be increased and/or the subsidy on low emissions vehicles decreased, it is hard to see this successfully clawing back the $100m gap. This would mean we have a likely scenario where the government will subsidise wealthy people purchasing Electric Vehicles while abandoning the similar measures for those on lower incomes.
Everywhere can and must contribute to emissions reductions
Lastly, by shifting the focus and funding for public transport away from smaller cities and regions we only make the overall challenge more difficult. Without any change, driving and thus emissions will continue to grow in these cities and regions, meaning any gains in the largest cities are reduced. There are emissions reductions that can be achieved everywhere and investing in public and active transport and supporting shifts in urban form are important for equity, inclusive access, and the economic success of our smaller cities and regions.
The summary
There is of course a need for analysis on what reductions in emissions will be achieved with expenditure of each policy. This hasn’t been given for the policies that have been dropped. It’s far too simplistic to be writing off policies that will reduce emissions given the scale of the challenge and the significant broader benefits they would have had too.