[sustran] Re: [NewMobilityCafe] CDM Projects (Clean Development Mechanism) - public transport

[Todd Alexander Litman]

I agree with Lee on two points. First, investments in alternative 
modes by themselves are an inefficient way to conserve energy and 
reduce emissions. It is far more important to implement pricing 
reforms which discourage automobile travel and encourage the purchase 
of more efficient vehicles then to simply invest in public transit, 
since only about 5% of fuel savings result from shifts to public 
transit - the rest results from other changes such as the purchase of 
more efficient vehicles, and shifts to walking, cycling, ridesharing, 
and closer destinations.

Second, public transit service improvements are justified on many 
other grounds besides climate change emissions, so focusing on this 
one objective would result in underinvestment in public transit. It 
is far better to justify public transit improvements due to their 
economic and social benefits (congestion reduction, road and parking 
facility cost savings, consumer savings, accident reductions, 
improved mobility for non-drivers) rather than focusing on energy 
conservation and emission reduction benefits.

That being said, climate change concerns are stimulating a lot of 
rethinking about transportation planning goals and practices. If the 
CDM can help justify some additional investment in efficient 
transportation, I'm all for it. Ideally, climate change emission 
reduction advocates should work with other interest groups (economic 
development, traffic safety, equity, public health, consumer 
interests, etc.) to build support for the substantial changes 
required to create truly sustainable transportation systems.

Let me tell you a related story. I'm currently writing a paper 
concerning methods for monetizing (measuring in monetary units) 
carbon emissions. There are two general approaches: damage costs, 
which may be hundreds of dollars per tonne, and control costs, which 
are probably much lower, perhaps $30-50 per tonne. A colleague wants 
to use the higher value for analysis because he assumes that will 
justify greater reductions in vehicle travel, but I'm not convinced. 
A very high climate change value will justify technical solutions 
that ONLY reduce emissions (such as regulations and incentives that 
increase fuel efficiency or shifts to alternative fuels) since the 
high value implies that climate change is the dominant, while a lower 
value will justify more mobility management solutions that reduce 
total vehicle travel and therefore help achieve multiple planning objectives.

For more information see:
"Win-Win Transportation Emission Reduction Strategies" 
(<http://www.vtpi.org/wwclimate.pdf>www.vtpi.org/wwclimate.pdf )
"Smart Transportation Emission Reduction Strategies" 
(<http://www.vtpi.org/ster.pdf>www.vtpi.org/ster.pdf )
"Carbon Taxes: Tax What You Burn, Not What You Earn" 
(<http://www.vtpi.org/carbontax.pdf>www.vtpi.org/carbontax.pdf )


Best wishes,
-Todd Litman


At 09:24 AM 23/11/2008, Lee Schipper wrote:
>Why would you want public transport in CDM, when the 
>values/costs/benefits of time saved, lower air pollution, less 
>noise, greater rider security and safety etc DWARF the carbon 
>values...and when adding a CDM component slows the entire 
>improvement of transport down immensely while all of us don our 
>green visors and count carbon.
>
>Counting that carbon is VERY hard 
>(http://embarq.wri.org/en/Article.140.aspx examined some of these 
>issues including a paper we wrote for the 2007 ECEEE conference on 
>measuring CO2 emissions CHANGES from transport projects).
>
>I'm VERY worried about CO2 in transport, but I'm convinced CDM and 
>like process that link to "carbon finance" either slow the process 
>down (see GEF grant progress), put too much focus on reducing CO2 
>rather than improving transport (they are not the same), filter our 
>vision to projects whose carbon savings are relatively to measure 
>(hybrid buses, proven but expensive) or ones with tiny and often 
>questionable savings (like small additions of biodiesel to bus fuel).
>
>I'm not against rewarding carbon saving or efforts at mass transit, 
>but the proportions of $ for carbon are tiny compared to the overall 
>pot of time, transport, urban development.  Can Mexico City honestly 
>say that their Metrobus was "additional", ie., would not have been 
>undertaken to save $$ millions in saved time, accidents, local air 
>pollution, reduced numbers of cars on the road (according to a nice 
>report by the Instituto Nacional de Ecologia published in 2006) for 
>a few hundred thousand $ of carbon finance funds arranged after the fact?
>
>Juerg Gruetter has made a good case for CDM and carbon financing of 
>BRT projects, but in the end these only affect a small amount of CO2 
>(in buses) and, while they draw a modest number of riders from cars, 
>still leave the rest of cars untouched. My fear is that CDM draws 
>interest to those easily bankable projects and away from the much 
>greater challenge, use of cars and other light duty vehicles.
>
>In four Latin American cities (Mexico City region, Bogota, S Paulo, 
>and Santiago) cars and taxis appear to account for 65-70% of all 
>direct GHG emissions from road traffic (including trucks).  Without 
>policies and projects that reduce that traffic (and its growth) 
>SIGNIFICANTLY, the savings from 'urban transport projects" in 
>general will be small.  Since most fo the carbon is in cars, most of 
>the change has to come from cars. How do you measure that and sell 
>the results against a rapidly growing baseline? And cars and trucks 
>are not "cdm-able", i.e., owned by the kinds of entities that can be 
>part of CDM directly. Of course $$ could be given to cities who 
>undertook strong transport measures, but again, why would they not 
>undertake those measures anyway? And why would national governments 
>not want to promulgate fuel economy standards to save oil?
>
>In short, is this really about $$ or political will?
>Finally, consider the following very rough numbers that illustrate 
>the scale of the problem.
>    * World GDP 60 Trillion (until the crash)
>    * World gross investment $10 TN (remember buildings burn energy 
> leading to CO2 emissions, too)
>    * Investments in transport infrastructure (road, rail, port, 
> air, facilities like transfer stations) - my guess $1-2 TN
>    * World purchase of private household transport equipment $1TN 
> (40 mn cars $25 000/car)
>    * World purchase of road fuels (roughly 2 TN)
>
>Are we really talking about  putting hundreds of billions YEARLY 
>into doing what is the right thing even if CO2 was not a problem. 
>Conversely, if we had a CO2 free fuel tomorrow, we'd still have a 
>traffic mess worldwide. So maybe focusing on transport and Co2, 
>rather than more broadly clean development - and understanding why 
>developing cities' traffic is such a mess even before CO2 is 
>considered - is higher on the agenda. If there are going to be N-S 
>transfers, aka Overseas Development Assistance, is CO2 "abatement" 
>the most cost effective way of using money for development?
>
>Realistically, how can CDM have more than a demonstration effect? If 
>so, then let's forget CDM as such and move to  a wider effort to
>
>Demonstrate various regional policy and technical solutions, 
>investing (for once) in enough competence building and data 
>gathering so localities can monitor traffic, emissions, fuel, safety 
>etc better. Our EMBARQ project in se Asia (PSUTA) discovered that 
>authorities' ability to monitor even the most elementary problems of 
>transport was pretty meager 
>--http://embarq.wri.org/en/ProjectCitiesDetail.aspx?id=9
>
>Some of these issues will be discussed at the upcoming COP (Dec 5). 
>Maybe Climate negotiations are not the right place to decide how to 
>use the streets? There will also be a spirited discussion during 
>Transportation Research Board Annual Meeting in Washington DC, both 
>during the meeting itself and at a special side event Friday 16 
>January.  This note is copied to several of those involved in these 
>discussions. Watch this space!
>
>Lee Schipper, Ph.D
>Project Scientist
>Global Metropolitan Studies
>2614 Dwight Way 2nd floor
>University of California Berkeley
>CA 94720-1782 USA
>TEL +1 510 642 6889
>FAX +1 510 642 6061
>CELL +1 202 262 7476


Sincerely,
Todd Alexander Litman
Victoria Transport Policy Institute (www.vtpi.org)
litman at vtpi.org
Phone & Fax 250-360-1560
1250 Rudlin Street, Victoria, BC, V8V 3R7, CANADA
"Efficiency - Equity - Clarity"