Environmental Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
Figure 3.36
South Bank. London is currently a very attractive and liveable city, with much vitality and life.
Transport is a major part of this offer and further spending should be viewed as an investment
in the city, for residents, businesses and visitors. Upgrading the transport systems is, however,
expensive, particularly in view of challenging CO2 reduction targets, and there needs to be some
rethinking of funding mechanisms, including using the developmental value uplift following
transport investment to fund transport and public realm initiatives.
some limited evidence of this. Large price increases may, perversely, 'help' achieve high-
intensity application in the preceding packages. There are, however, very large difficulties in
terms of acceptability of large price increases (with the public and business). With the recent
discovery of oil shales and gas fracking, there may be downward pressures on oil prices that
might in turn reduce the incentives to switch to low carbon mobility.
This chapter outlines some of the difficulties being experienced in achieving ambitious CO2
emission reduction targets, in even a progressive city such as London that aims to become
'sustainable'. London can perhaps be considered as one of the 'bellwethers' for experience
elsewhere, developing an early, innovative strategy for low carbon transport. Though, of
course, we should appreciate that transport CO2 emissions remain high in Outer London relative
to Inner London, with higher levels of car dependency. Per capita emissions levels in London
are also much higher than those found in cities in countries such as India and China.
Multiple pathways are possible in moving towards low CO2 emissions in transport in
London, each with different levels of CO2 reduction. All of the scenarios that reduce CO2
emissions to a significant degree represent significant breaks against current trends and are
