A new report shows that the rail sector is well on the way to achieving its target of a 30% reduction in CO2 emissions from rail traction by 2020. The target was set by the members of the Community of European Railway and Infrastructure Companies (CER) in 2008, as part of their commitment to ensure that the rail sector maintains its strong environmental performance. It involves a sector-wide reduction in the specific levels (emissions per passenger km or per tonne km) of CO2 from rail traction by 30% from 1990 to 2020.
The latest monitoring report on progress towards the target, carried out by UIC - the worldwide association of railways, shows that the sector is clearly on target to meet the 30% reduction in both freight and passenger sectors.
The report, produced as part of the annual update of UIC‘s ‘Energy and CO2 database‘, also adds that the total CO2 emissions from the European railway sector have been reduced from 1990 to 2009 by 38%. Rail is the only transport mode in which total emissions have fallen.
While the level of specific emissions savings achieved in rail freight already surpasses the 2020 target, they benefited from the major structural changes to the rail freight sector in the years immediately after 1990 in Eastern Europe in particular, which had a significant impact on rail freight emissions. Furthermore, the specific emissions levels can still be negatively affected by factors such as economic recession.
The greater challenge for rail sector emissions now remains to continue reducing specific emissions in the passenger sector, where total levels of CO2 emissions are nearly four times higher than in freight. Nevertheless, given the overall positive state of the figures, members of UIC and CER have already agreed a new target for 2030, of a 50% reduction in overall specific emissions.
The results will be outlined in Brussels during the annual conference on European environment policy, ‘Green Week’ which is currently taking place in Brussels until 27 May, when CER and UIC will demonstrate how rail can further contribute to a sustainable, low-carbon and resource-efficient transport system in Europe.
In keeping with the conference’s main theme “Resource efficiency – Using less, living better”, the rail sector will be presenting its two internet-based tools, EcoPassenger (www.ecopassenger.com) and EcoTransIT (www.ecotransit.org). These interactive services enable customers to calculate the emissions for passenger or freight journeys and show which mode of transport is more suitable for a given journey in terms of environmental impact. They also fit in with the proposals outlined in the recent transport White Paper on the need to develop carbon footprint calculators in order to better estimate the full impact of each passenger and freight journey.
UIC Director-General Jean-Pierre Loubinoux said: “EcoTransIT offers an important contribution to the ongoing discussions on how to measure the impact of the transport sector in terms of greenhouse gas. The tool, which received the Logistics Innovations Award at the International Trade Show Logistics Solutions, provides a scientifically-proven and fair methodology approved by neutral international environmental institutions. Rail is working hard and systematically to continuously improve the rail product and its sustainability advantages, and a large number of UIC Members worldwide (45 to date) signed the UIC Declaration on Sustainable Mobility and Transport on 11 May in New York, with the participation of the United Nations, to prove their commitment to further improve their sustainable performance.”
CER Executive Director Johannes Ludewig said: “Rail transport is already the least polluting major transport mode, and produces less than 2% of the EU’s total transport greenhouse gas emissions. The external costs our sector is producing are only a fraction of those of the road sector. But we have ambitious goals and want to improve our environmental footprint even further. These results show that there have been important investments from CER members in order to achieve these reduction goals”.
During Green Week, proposals developed during the recent EU-funded ‘Railenergy‘ project to further reduce rail’s environmental impact will also be presented. This will take place in the ‘Competitive and sustainable transport – pathways to modernisation and decarbonisation‘ session on 26 May.
