Sustainable Transport Targets

Sustainable Transport targets: Electrifying or a shock to the system?

To mitigate climate impacts, a sizable ‘elephant in the room’ is transport. Making transport sustainable is a mighty challenge, in terms of infrastructure, practicality, economics, investment and innovation. Given that we are unlikely to stop using transport for travel, shipping goods, business and pleasure, how is the EU looking to reshape the transport industry to swap out combustible fuel for electric power?

The objective of the European Green Deal aims to reach net-zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050. A major sector to overhaul to achieve this is the transport sector. The transport sector uses more than half of the global oil demand and creates a quarter of global CO 2 emissions from fuel combustion. Transport contributes to 30% of the total CO 2 emissions in the EU. Within the European transportation sector, road transport contributes 73% of EU CO 2 emissions, followed by aviation at 13% and maritime, 11%. Rail has already championed electrification significantly, which means only 1.6%. Indeed, electric is hailed as the champion for an alternative source of sustainable energy for this sector.

To accomplish the ‘holy grail’ of net zero emissions, we need to stop burning diesel and petrol and swap over to transport powered by electric batteries. It’s a huge undertaking and one that needs a coordinated and committed approach across European nations. Here we look at how Europe is preparing, planning and innovating to go electric across all our modes of transport. Charging Ahead Whilst they are increasingly more common on our roads (385,000 sold through Europe in 2018), electric vehicles are currently still perceived as a niche product, and you could argue this is in part is due to the sporadic supporting infrastructure.

Current policy aims indicate that 33 million electric cars will be on the roads by 2030 and for a truly climate neutral scenario that rises to 44 million electric cars. That would require a huge rise in electric charging points.

An EU policy framework for alternative fuels infrastructure seeks to address this need. At the end of 2019 there were 185,000 public charging points in the EU, which in terms of ratio, serves the current electric car market adequately (7 cars per charging point). With the ambitions for e-mobility high, this will need to rise. By 2030 there will be 3 million charging points needed, requiring and investment of 1.8 billion Euros in the year 2025, which equates to 3% of EUs annual investment in road transport infrastructure.

As for the vehicles, car manufacturers have great motivation to develop electric car models as each country sets targets for zero emissions. Car manufacturers are now engaged in electric car innovations and developing new models, which is deemed necessary to remain competitive. The EU is set on stiff regulations, high taxes and even bans on fossil fuels in relatively tight timelines, so it is now a race to be ‘future-proof’ for car manufacturers. With the EU spelling out that electric is the future – and to compound this, they will be penalised We ask if the ambitious European Union goals for Sustainable Transport are realistic.

By Richard Forsyth

if continuing with petrol and diesel – the choice of electric cars in the marketplace is going to increase. Manufacturers like Volkswagon, Volvo, Nissan, General Motors, Mercedes and Toyota are committed to producing electric car models.

The projection is that almost half of all vehicles sold in 2030 in Europe will be EVs whilst it is desired by the EU that by 2035, all new car sales will be electric in Europe. Some say that this is not nearly enough to combat climate mitigation but re-booting established economies poses a staggeringly large undertaking on a Europe-wide scale.

Trucks and Buses In May 2018, the European Commission put forward legislation for the first mandatory reductions for CO 2 emissions for trucks, coaches and buses. It required a reduction of 15% by 2025 and 30% by 2030. The regulations will initially apply to 16 tons and above but from 2022 this will extend to lighter trucks, buses and coaches. Manufacturers will be incentivised to achieve zero tail pipe emissions, meaning going electric. As with cars, if the manufacturers fail to meet the emissions targets, they will face substantial fines, so investments in research and development is paramount.

The stark reality at present is that, progress is relatively limited. In 2018, electric vehicles associated with freight were mostly light-commercial vehicles (LCVs), accounting for around 250,000 units in 2018, while medium electric truck sales were in the range of 1,000 - 2,000 in 2018. Whilst a climate emergency requires action, some manufacturers, already burdened with other market pressures, will face enormous strain from the demands for radical and effective innovation.

Trains Time for a success story. Trains are already hailed as a good choice for sustainable transport because compared to cars and planes they emit up to 80% less carbon and in some countries less that 3% of all transport emissions come from trains. Walking and cycling are said to be the only methods more environmentally friendly.

Three quarters of passenger rail activity takes place on electric trains today, which is good news. Trains are the most reliant vehicles in the transport sector on electricity. What’s more, all around Europe there are plans to increase reliance on electric railways further, which is promising when according to a report by the IEA in 2019, passenger and freight activity will have doubled by 2050. Some EU countries are way ahead in terms of adoption, such as Switzerland, the Swizz Federal Railways rail network is 100% electrified, for example. The EU regulation of the railway sector will mean a technical standardisation in line with sustainable goals. By moving more road freight to rail, which is the plan, impacts will be significant for sustainable aims.

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E-ships An oft ignored diesel polluter in the sustainable transport debate is shipping, yet greenhouse gas emissions from shipping are the same as the carbon footprint of a quarter of passenger cars in Europe.

The Yara Birkeland from Norway, is hailed to be the first electric powered autonomous container ship with zero emissions. It can carry 120 containers over 30 nautical miles. Although it represents breakthrough technology, there are diesel container ships around that carry 150 times as many containers over 400 times the distance, and four times faster. The problem, as always, is the economics around the logistics. To scale up an electric powered ship to make it compete means the batteries would take up 40% of the cargo capacity. Anyone can see the issue here. In the past 70 years the energy density of commercial batteries has only marginally shifted.

Despite the difficulties, there are calls for the EU to impose a CO 2 levy on EU shipping and create a European maritime climate fund to reinvest in the sector to help mitigate its carbon footprint.

Electricity in the Air The EU technical environmental goals of the European Commission’s Flightpath 2050 Vision for Aviation is the reduction of CO 2 by 75%, reduction of NOx by 90% and noise reduction by 65%. So how realistic are these goals? Disappointingly, at the present time, not very. New technology is urgently needed and innovation is the only way to keep these lofty targets from being ‘pie in the sky’.

The European Aviation Environmental Report (EAER) was pretty clear in the most recent assessment published in 2020, that aviation activities were increasing impacts to climate change, as well as ‘affecting the health and quality of the life of European citizens’. In Aviation, CO 2 emissions are rising. Aviation is responsible for 3.6% of the total EU28 greenhouse gas emissions. There is a forecast growth of 42% in the number of flights between 2017 and 2040, which would mean a 21% increase in CO 2 emissions. Pretty grim statistics when contrasted with the noble aims of climate impact mitigation adopted by European countries. Aviation is a thorn in the side of climate mitigation hopes. Whilst electric cars may seem a feasible future for the roads, the air travel is not ‘so simple’, relatively speaking, with technologies available.

An oft ignored diesel polluter in the sustainable transport debate is shipping, yet greenhouse gas emissions from shipping are the same as the carbon footprint of a quarter of passenger cars in Europe. An oft ignored diesel polluter in the sustainable transport debate is shipping, yet greenhouse gas emissions from shipping are the same as the carbon footprint of a quarter of passenger cars in Europe.

However, there is always hope for change. In 2019 at the Paris air show, an Israeli aircraft manufacturer unveiled Alice – a 9 seater electric plane powered by lithium-ion battery – capable of 650 miles at 10,000 ft on a single charge - expected in service by 2022. There is real motivation demonstrated from many countries to get ahead of the curve on electric powered flights. Take Norway as a leader in adoption of electric planes. Norway intends to make sure all short haul flights under an hour and a half are via electric planes by the year 2040. Avinor, Norway’s public operator of Norwegian airports, is planning to test commercial routes flown by small electric planes with 19 seats, from 2025. It will have some advantages economically as well as environmentally, with lower operational costs. Before we get there though, hybrid planes and biofuels will be initial steps to this goal.

Hybrids are a little more palatable for some in this sector when talking about short haul commercial flights. If the planes can get off the ground with help from conventional engines, then once airborne the hope is they can fly with more reliance on electric motors. Airbus for example, are partnering with Rolls Royce and Siemens to develop a hybrid solution, the E-Fan X with its maiden voyage as a demonstrator as soon as in 2021. This aircraft seeks to be key in advancing aircraft design and determine requirements for future certification of electric aircraft. There is a sense of great innovation and continued tweaking in this sector, but the major impacts will

be in making large commercial planes electric whilst being safe and reliable. When, how and even ‘if’ this will happen is yet not possible to say. Like all transport, the innovations need to step change to make it feasible. Considering that in 2018, 1,106 million people in the EU travelled by air, the challenge that is ahead in this sector alone, is obviously enormous. Leaving on a positive note, whilst electric commercial planes are ‘eeking’ slowly forward, aviation technologies in general are constantly aspiring to transform to be more lightweight, more efficient and less polluting – as it just makes commercial sense to improve efficiencies.

Electric dreams Summarising the plans and checking against realities, the future decades will no doubt see great changes, however, pressuring industry to such extremes in tight deadlines will no doubt mean casualties in business. There will be winners, losers and ambitious targets can sometimes fail. What’s proposed is a transformation of a transport infrastructure to a scale we have not witnessed before and it’s clear, the EU is determined to instigate an enforced widescale industrial change. Incentives, high level support, customer buy-in and investments into science will be the combined catalyst necessary to make change work. Electric is coming, the real problem is, of course, we need the change instantaneously if we are to make meaningful headway in climate mitigation.