Green Transport

KEY MESSAGES

PETROL AND DIESEL ARE COOKING THE PLANET
PLANES AND BOATS AND TRAINS AND CARS COULD USE CLEAN FUEL
WALKING AND CYCLING IS BEST WHERE POSSIBLE
SOLUTIONS FOR CARBON ARE ALSO SOUTIONS FOR AIR POLLUTION
OFFSETTING HAS A (SMALL) ROLE TO PLAY

Haringey’s actions are in the ‘pink stripes’ below

MEAGRE WAYS IN WHICH HARINGEY CAN ACT - click

The CCC Sector Summary for Surface Transport lists the ways in which Local Authorities can influence levels of carbon emissions in their areas. The actions Haringey proposes are in the HCCAP and Air Pollution. Click on pink stripes to see Haringey proposals which can be summarised as reducing carbon emissions by cycling and walking and encouraging the offsetting of unavoidable transport emissions.

Haringey’s Climate Change Action Plan, approved in March 2021 has some Transport actions around public EV charging, discouraging private cars, encouraging walking and cycling and also promotes Offsetting schemes.

Cause and effect – The Bloomberg carbon clock above continually shows how the massive global warming we have today was caused by the extraction and use of oil over the same period. The growth in oil extraction tracks the growth of carbon intensity in the atmosphere since about 280mpp CO2 concentration when the UK kickstarted the industrial revolution to 417mpp CO2 by March 2021.

Gambling on catastrophic damage – And the Keeling Curve research notes that “a level of CO₂between 370 and 540 ppm has a 66 percent probability of keeping the world within this 2º C limit of warming” with illustrations of other climate indicators inc sea level rise, Greenland ice today, rea; time temperature and salinity,

Offsetting to compensate for emissions – Where individuals, businesses and countries persist in travelling and transporting using oil there are various schemes to ‘offset’ and take action (eg payment) to sequester volumes of greenhouse gases. These are discussed in the ‘green stripe’ lower down.

Transport emissions are heating up our world

Quite simply any trip powered by fossil fuels causes global warming and polluted air. Planes, boats, trains, trucks, cars. Conversely, any trip powered by human muscle power or renewable energy is low carbon and is also low pollution. The oil industry is highly subsidised, and The Guardian Feb 2021 makes the point that “the profits for drilling go to individual companies while the damages, both environmental and financial, are largely borne by the local community and by state and federal taxpayers.” The prospect of losing huge profits may explain the misinformation campaigns discussed below.

We do need to make some journeys and to get essential deliveries and are used to making extra pleasure trips and expecting additional deliveries. Moving from oil to clean electricity sources and walking and cycling would make a huge difference to climate damage and to the air that we breathe.

Emissions from Well to Tank

Emissions from well to tank

The video above follows the massive greenhouse gas and pollution path for oil production across the world.

In ‘Producing gasoline and diesel emits more CO2 than we thought’ Auke Hoekstra Feb 2020 in Producing gasoline and diesel emits more CO2 than we thought explains the massive industry and carbon emissions that gets oil from well to destination.
- getting a barrel of oil to the refinery emits more CO2 than previously thought: a global average weighted value is around 10.3 gram CO2eq/MJ.²(That’s 63 kg of CO2 for every barrel delivered to a refinery).
- refining oil. A recent study for the EU looked at this topic in depth and estimated that refineries add 10.2 gram CO2eq/MJ for gasoline and 5.4 for diesel
- transporting the stuff to a gas pump near you adds just over 1 gr CO2eq/MJ
- using oil to move means that on top of these there is 2420 gr/l for pure gasoline and 2670 gr/l for pure diesel
Researchgate adds the well to tank additions to arrive at Total CO2 emissions for gasoline and diesel Gasoline 3140 grams per litre Diesel 3310 grams per litre.

And, in addition to these production chain emissions these shocking post production emissions from abandoned oil wells were reported by The Guardian Feb 2021

For short journeys walking and cycling incurs the fewest emissions, and Travel Carbon Footprint lists the CO₂eq per Km of other forms from the UK Government’s methodology paper for greenhouse gas reporting. (eq means also adjusting for non-CO₂ greenhouse gases and the increased warming effects of aviation emissions at high altitudes).

It is notable that

• Despite domestic and short haul flights emitting so much CO2 equivalent it is much cheaper to fly than to catch a train for holidays or business trips.
• Because diesel emits slightly less per km than petrol it is favoured by UK taxation, despite being much worse for polluting the air causing death and illness.
• The figure for emissions for EVs assume that they are made in a factory using high carbon fuel (eg coal) and that the electricity to fuel them is the average UK fuel mix. As electricity decarbonises these EV emissions will be much lower.

Subsidising Oil

Subsidising Oil The oil industry is being subsidised across the world reported by The Climate Transparency Brown to Green Report of Nov 2018 as “an increase of about 50% in subsidies over the past 10 years to compete with increasingly cheap wind, solar and other renewable energy sources.” (The G20 nations spent $147bn (£114bn) on subsidies in 2016). For the UK, in Feb 2016 The Telegraph reported that, as well as £5bn subsidy for fossil fuel production, the government had now announced a further £1.3bn of tax breaks for North Sea oil companies, £250m for propping up oil and gas and £20m on seismic testing. And aviation fuel has no duty at all George Monbiot in Jan 2016 reported a subsidy of £7billion a year on aviation fuel.

Further taxpayers ‘subsidies’ include the public cost of reclaiming abandoned, emitting wells. The thinktank Carbon Tracker, reports it could cost $280bn to reclaim wells, and public bonding data indicates that states have less than 1% of that money in secure bonds. And the Center for American Progress recently published a plan for a $2bn orphan well cleanup fund, which would both address the pollution and support 14,000 to 24,000 jobs in energy-producing states like Wyoming

Offsetting Your Transport Emissions

Net zero, according to the Institute for Government means “achieving a balance between the amount of greenhouse gas emissions produced and the amount removed from the atmosphere.” … “A gross-zero target would mean reducing all emissions to zero. This is not realistic, so instead the net-zero target recognises that there will be some emissions but that these need to be fully offset.” Where existing emissions cannot be reduced offsetting is “predominantly through natural carbon sinks such as oceans and forests.” and they can also be offset by supporting clean projects and clean purchases.

Some ways individuals can offset emissions from their lifestyles include:
- Online searches. Try Ecosia for online searches. “We use the profit we make from your searches to plant trees where they are needed most.”
- Personal holidays. The BBC reported that less than half of the world’s major airlines were giving passengers the opportunity to offset the carbon dioxide produced from their flights. Climatecare offers ways to a portfolio of projects that offset money can be directed to. And Fly Green books flights and offsets the emissions to cook stoves in Chad.
- Business Travel. Climatecare also provides easy ways for businesses to offset their travel, including carbon calculators that can be embedded in web sites. And Haringey plans to set up an offset scheme. (ref C3) to “Promote the Council’s policy of flights only being allowed for key services (such as coroners, social workers etc)
- Choice of electricity tariff. Choosing a supplier who invests in new renewables might cost more but could compensate for a high carbon lifestyle.
- Choice of vehicle. Choosing an electric vehicle might cost more but will contribute to a clean electricity grid.
NOTE: The aviation industry has CORSIA, a voluntary international offset scheme for the aviation industry to offset CO₂ emissions. Aviation fuel is not subject to tax, or to the UK Emissions Trading Scheme.

MISINFORMATION CAMPAIGNS

As electric vehicles (EVs) displace the demand for oil eg “1 million barrels per day of oil demand for Internal Combustion Engines (ICEs) could be displaced by just 48.9 million EVs” according to a Carbon Tracker tool in July 2018. They concluded that “The whole world order, based on oil, will not be given up without resistance by those with power and riches”.

The mechanism employed by the interests wanting to maintain the world order based on oil is explained by Michael Mann in ‘The New Climate War’ 2021 . He explains the techniques learned from Fear Uncertainty and Doubt (FUD) delaying gun controls and tobacco restrictions. They were first used to divert attention from the build up of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere to now systematically diverting attention from the need for protection from the Authorities to blaming individuals.

Myth campaigns
These techniques have been used for many years. For example:
- Political donations Clean Technica in August 2019 reported that “The Koch Brothers are billionaire petrochemical barons who have built a fortune on the transport and refining of fossil fuels.” And explains the political donations made and the legislation promoted to favour maximum oil use in vehicles.
- Anti Air Pollution campaigns – The Guardian March 2021 investigation Oil Industry Fuels Air Pollution Documents revealed that “From the 1960s, however, a mass of historical documents from corporate archives at libraries in the US and Canada, scientific journals and paperwork released in legal cases shows the oil industry began to grasp the damage to health caused by the burning of fossil fuels.” We’ve seen the oil and gas industry’s disinformation campaign come full circle with the renewed attacks on research that tells us what we’ve known for decades – air pollution kills,” said Kert Davies, director of Climate Investigations Center, which uncovered some of the historical documents.
- Anti EV Vehicles campaigns Auke Hoekstra of the Eindhoven University of Technology debunks misinformation circulating in Germany about EV carbon emissions in Jan 2021 that was sent to Audi car sales.
- Myths across topics. Zero Carbon World published sound information busting myths about:
° Range anxiety
° Charging stations
° Pricing
° Performance
° Environment
° Variety
° Battery Recycling
° Ethics and Resourcing
- Arithmetical ‘mistakes’ Auke Houstra in Joule June 2019 details common techniques often used to imply that electric vehicles are worse for the environment than internal combustion engines. Auke states that BEVs reduce emissions from 244g/km to 98g/km. And as soon as BEVs are manufactured using renewable electricity this will fall further to 10g/km. He lists ‘mistakes’ as:
° overestimating emissions from manufacturing
° underestimating battery lifetime
° assuming an unchanged electricity mix over the lifetime of the vehicles
(despite the CCC requiring reduction from 220gCO2/kWh in 2019 to 10gCO2/kWh by 2035 (p36)
° not comparing with fuel production emissions (as detailed higher up).
- False messages about Environmental Benefits. The Guardian reported on misleading messages about waste. Fossil fuel cars waste hundreds of times more raw material than their battery electric equivalents, according to a study that adds to evidence that the move away from petrol and diesel cars will bring large net environmental benefits. The Guardian confirmed this with an analysis by Transport Environment. “Only about 30kg of raw material will be lost over the lifecycle of a lithium ion battery used in electric cars once recycling is taken into account, compared with 17,000 litres of oil, according to analysis by Transport & Environment (T&E)”.
- Unethical mining practices. Desmogblog May 2018 debunked CNN claims about cobalt mining (just for EV) batteries.
So all messages about any downside of moving away from oil to renewables should be examined very carefully before acceptance.