Transport as a Factor in the Achievement of the EU Goals to Combat Climate Changes and to Reduce Greenhouse Gases Emissions

Barbara Pawłowska,Michał Suchanek

doi:10.33119/jmfs.2018.33.5

Barbara Pawłowska, Michał Suchanek

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.33119/jmfs.2018.33.5

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Abstract

One of the priorities of the “Europe 2020” strategy is to combat climate change and to reduce greenhouse gases (GHG) emissions. The key elements for the climate policy framework for the European Commission for 2020 are as follows: (1) reducing GHG emissions by 40% in comparison to the level in 1990; (2) increasing the share of renewable energy in the use of final energy to 27%; (3) increasing the energetic efficiency by 27%. Those are ambitious goals which will require the Member States to increase their efforts in all the sectors of the economy. In 2015 the GHG emissions in the EU fell by 23.7% in comparison to the level in 1990. All the sectors, apart from the transport sector contributed to the emission reduction in the years 1990–2015. The transport emission increased by 13.3% in that period in comparison to the year 1990, which is particularly worrisome. This is important because the fuels use in the transport sector contributed to approximately 20% of all the GHG emissions in the EU in 2015. The article presents the factors and the tools which significantly affect the achievement of the goals set in the Green Paper: a 2030 framework for energy and climate policies, which concern the transport sector and the indicated guidelines and instruments supporting them. The road transport will be extensively analysed as it is the transport mode which shows an extraordinary growth tendency and it is a vital barrier in the achievement of the goals set in the area of “Climate change and GHG emission reduction”. The article presents the results of the research, which show the impact of various identified tools on the achievement of the threepriorities of the climate policy. The multivariate analysis of variance (MANOVA) was used, in which the dependent variables were: the GHG emission levels, the use of renewable energy and the energy intensity of transport. The results were calculated based on the data from 28 Member States and the model was verified.

Highlights

Climate change is one of the greatest challenges facing the worldwide economy [OJ L 282/2016].The stake is the future of social welfare
The analysis of the three aforementioned areas: the transport greenhouse gases (GHG) emissions, the consumption of the final energy in the transport sector and the share of alternative fuels in the transport sectors leads to a number of conclusions
These results suggest that the pro-ecological effort which the countries generate, represented by the number of instruments which they use, does not affect the dynamics of the greenhouse gas emissions, energetic efficiency and the share of renewable energy in the use of final energy

Summary

Introduction

Climate change is one of the greatest challenges facing the worldwide economy [OJ L 282/2016].The stake is the future of social welfare. As trade moves to the regions with a lack of rail or waterway infrastructure, greenhouse gas emissions from road freight will almost double According to the EEA’s report [EEA, 2017] in 2015, the transport sector contributed 25.8% of the total EU-28 greenhouse gas emissions (GHGs). This figure decreases to 21% if international aviation and maritime emissions are excluded. Road transport contributes about one-fifth of the EU’s total emissions of carbon dioxide (CO2), the main greenhouse gas. While these emissions fell by 3.3% in 2012, they are still 20.5% higher than in 1990. The goal of the article is to assess the trend of the changes in the aforementioned indicators and to determine whether the use of various instruments have had an effect on the dynamics of these changes

The European Union’s Climate and Energy Policy Framework for 2030 and 2050

Review of the EU’s climate policy activities’ effects

Findings

Summary