Transport: the missing link in adaptation to climate change in the UK

The inauspicious state of UK’s adaptation

The whole transport sector is the largest source of carbon emissions in the UK. Since this adds to the UK contribution to the climate emergency, the sector needs targeting with a wide variety of measures to cut emissions.

The academic literature on adaptation to climate change offers extensive references to threats to transport infrastructure and to the need for more coastal and estuarial protection. The latter would need to be on a scale that is difficult to imagine, even for a comparatively wealthy country like the UK. This is terrific news for producers of steel, tarmac and concrete, but not helpful in terms of emissions. Imagine a scenario where a slew of wealthier countries around the world start building what amounts to new coastlines using fossil fuels. Feasibility and timescales are also big questions. Take Russia: the Russian coastline abutting the Arctic is 4,000 miles long. Is it at all likely that such a long line of coastal protection would be constructed?

Where the construction labour force to do physical work for adaptation would come from is a thorny question given current skills shortages and an ageing workforce, here in the UK. Sadly, the Government contribution to thinking on adaptation to climate change (NAP3) up to the present reads like an indirect advertising brochure for the expensive, slow to create, resource-intensive physical infrastructure approach favoured by those who expect to make money out of the process.

Transport can be presented as an adaptation to the climate change problem. This is not just about infrastructure, however necessary, but adaptation to the challenge of the climate emergency by expediting change in the transport modes people use. This suggestion challenges the dominant cognitive frame – at its simplest a way of seeing – in which transport infrastructure appears dominant in literature on adaptation to climate change. Governments have failed to address this key issue of adaptation adequately and generally show themselves incapable of thinking in longer term time periods, as extensive literature on this broad topic attests. Short-termism is unhelpful to achieving climate goals and the latest report from the Committee on climate change strongly emphasises many problems in UK climate policy. It follows, therefore, that new forms of engagement by government, private and voluntary sectors and the public are needed. Adapting transport behaviours to reduce emissions both mitigates such emissions and potentially engages more people in putting adaptation to Climate change into how they use transport.

Adaptation to climate change: definition and issues

First, a step back to define what is meant by adaptation to climate change. Adaptation in this context refers to changes to ecological, social and economic systems and consequently improving how resilient they are to actual or threatened effects from climate change. Implicit in this area of definitions is that politics and governments may also be adapting to climate change. However, this observably occurs at different speeds with varied degrees of efficacy, if anything is done at all. Countries, and regions within them, will have very different adaptation needs and variable resources. Capacity for resilience will also vary, depending upon the severity of climate impacts and level of overall resources in particular locations, as argued (pp16-17) by Julian Caldecott in his 2021 book, ‘Surviving Climate Chaos’.

Adaptation to protect people, ecosystems and the production of food may seem essential, and politically unavoidable for the UK. However, in practice today’s Government may wish to leave difficult decisions to tomorrow’s government, as the Conservative governments of 2010-24 appear to have done. To change this short-termism, we need good basic principles. Principles for adaptation can be rooted in systems thinking and sharing of knowledge from differing sources of values (Caldecott pp74-75). Adaptation can be seen as a process, and perhaps one of indefinite duration, to create resilience and flexibility under changing conditions (Caldecott pp88-89). An example of how this applies to transport which Caldecott envisages is:

“… the deliberate redesign of cities to be much more liveable, efficient and self-sustaining, through public transport, architecture, pedestrianisation, etc …”

Bulkeley and Betsill provide a case study of Cambridgeshire in Chapter 6 of their 2003 climate protection and local transport policy which is pertinent here. Hickman and Banister (2014) have done a similarly useful study for Oxfordshire – see Chapter 4.

Briefly, we should consider the relationship between adaptation and mitigation. Neither excludes the other. Both can and should be pursued at the same time, not least since the importance of adaptation gained its place only rather slowly in climate conferences – see ELF Schipper (2009). Consequently, the list of priorities below does not seek to ‘measure’ where adaptation ceases and mitigation is being proposed in detail. There is a separate discussion to be had about when a brave Government in the UK ‘gets real’ about adaptation and sets out realistic long-term plans.

It would be prudent to steadily reduce demand for some types of transport in order to ensure investment by the State is encouraging adaptation to Climate change by using the least-cost, least environmentally-damaging forms of potential transport policies. This should involve creating a downward trend in the car journeys people make in particular. This applies particularly to SUVs, which globally accounted for one fifth of the growth in global energy-related carbon dioxide emissions in 2023. In the UK, SUVs increased 23% 2022-23, and now number over 1 million.

Towards adaptation of transport in the climate emergency

What follows is a short example of a strategy about how transport activities may be adapted to climate change in the UK.

1. Journey prevention: We need remote working and flexitime to be guaranteed rights for as many working people as possible, to reduce car journeys. As under Covid, the implications of more people discovering facilities/services close to where they live may promote 15-minute Cities/communities. See for example the author’s review of 15-Minute Cities by Carlos Moreno in West England Bylines. This may well, as under Covid, mean more online shopping, home delivery vehicles and cargo bikes substituting for many more car journeys;
2. Downward pressure on car ownership: Steady reduction in car parking inside settlements will help, as will a pavement parking ban similar to that already existing in London. Raising car parking charges by introducing a new minimum charge for paid parking may encourage use of less damaging modes of transport. Given the physical resources, road space and parking implications of SUVs, neither electric nor conventional SUVs are desirable. Adaptation to cut emissions from surface transport has to include making it more expensive to buy or park SUVs;
3. End trunk road building and reduce overall road space: short distance car journeys can be discouraged over time by ending new trunk road construction, and not adding to road space by widening. More bus lanes and cycle tracks occupying existing road space will tend to specifically discourage short-distance car journeys, especially in rush hours, including car commuting for work and school run journeys;
4. Active Travel investment:Increase cycling investment in England from £1 per person per year to the £58 per person per year current in Scotland. Set out a programme for long-term pavement repair and ensure pavement parking is banned throughout the UK, with traffic police expansion for enforcement. The intention is to decrease car journeys as far as is possible and maximise public health benefits;
5. Remove all direct and indirect subsidies for civil aviation and shipping: The main subsidy to these sectors is the surface transport infrastructure created and sometimes maintained for them. The Government should support electric aviation and shipping using renewable source electricity for the aviation and shipping sectors, which will involve speeding up all connections to the grid for new renewable energy infrastructure and having dedicated sources of large-scale electricity supply proximate to areas of heavy use e.g. airports/ports. A ‘smart grid’ will be needed to allow households, businesses, the public sector and voluntary organisations to feed their surplus electricity (for example) back into the Grid, and get paid for it. The UK has about 40% of the wind resources of Europe with both offshore and onshore potential – use of which is far from reaching anywhere near capacity. I am very sceptical about alternative fuels in terms of potential land use, scale of required development and speed of distribution globally. We are in a climate emergency requiring urgent action. To encourage the relevant industries to switch, the number of airports and ports could be reduced with particular emphasis on those locations most vulnerable to sea level rise and least amenable to low cost protection. This could involve much larger Air Passenger Duty and higher charges on large vessels for port use, to create downward pressure on usage. Some of the locations of ports and airports may be considered uneconomic for investment and insurance over time and therefore requiring Just Transition plans – especially where re-location of communities is most needed in estuaries and on coastlines;
6. Planning for coastal retreat: Lowest cost, maximum effectiveness coastal and estuary protection will be needed indefinitely. Nature-based protection should be used generally, including to back up such ‘hard’ coastal and estuary protection as may be agreed. Some estuaries may be suitable for tidal barrages or other energy schemes, subject to minimising environmental impacts. Walking, cycling, rail and road links may all need protection or re-location in areas at most risk of sea level rise and/or more extreme storms;
7. Electronic Road Pricing for the UK: This is required to provide funding to replace fuel duties completely, and can be used to make non-exempt car journeys into urban settlements less attractive than before. Pricing levels should be set to guarantee slow reductions in overall traffic movements. See the author’s report on how this might work in Oxford;
8. Full electrification of rail: Long-term renewable-source electrification of the railways. This should be coupled with at least a 50% reduction in rail fares and the re-opening of disused lines as far as it is practical to do so. New Underground rail links should be contemplated in those areas with very high traffic levels in rush-hour school runs, with detailed qualifying criteria ;
9. School access without the car: Reducing access to schools by car by parents should be achieved. Measures should include: Electronic Road Pricing; school street restrictions on parking and driving; a pavement parking ban; staffed ‘walking bus’ support for parents; dedicated school buses for schools with large catchment areas;
10. An adapted, sustainable construction industry: Pavement parking bans will not be welcome in an industry which generates an enormous amount of pavement parking. However, reducing construction costs overall should include helping to combine proximate construction businesses, perhaps into cooperatives, to help reduce construction vehicle numbers. Similarly, modular construction of units for buildings can use less resources, less labour, generate less waste and reduce time spent on sites. Yes, construction workers may have to park and walk further to some sites. No, this isn’t the end of the world, but clear plans with grant aid – e.g. for electric vehicles – should all be part of Government policy.

Conclusions

The above assumes a massive increase in electricity supply. The commercial sector, voluntary organisations and public services need a combination of direct funding, grants and regulations to ensure a switch to renewable sources and the consequent deliberate creation of surplus electricity in particular to feed back into the Grid. All of the above makes it easier to envisage supporting an electric-based, sustainable overall transport system – created with ambitious goals up to 2050, and beyond.

With thanks to Hazel Dawe for initial proofreading, editing and ideas for this article.

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