How Green Transportation initiatives and Projects Supports Low Carbon Cities

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 Introduction

The international haste to be able to keep global warming at bay below 2°C as well as to

avoid climate change calls for operational and systematic reduction of greenhouse gas (GHC)

emissions in all fields of human interaction. It is noted from various forums that transport

accounts to over 36% of world’s emissions, thereby making is the second of all emitting sector

that is after the energy sector in the world. Noting that while other series are extensively reducing

their emission of carbon, the transport industry has raised its rates by more than 30% over the

last 10 years. Handling growing rate of carbon emissions has become a issue of concern or

urgency (Chan, Conejos & Wang, 2017). USA an EU is able to come up with measures to curb

emissions coming from transport focusing on Carbon Dioxide as the main GHG. While the

international level of the carbon emissions increase regions such as the EU has strived to ensure

that there is a better and reliable mechanism that is able to advocate for a better change in green

transport. The use of global approach and better or reliable adoption of binding the targets by the

use of relevant organizations. The EU as well as the US have set targets and placed policies in

place to reduce carbon emissions from various transport nodes. These includes implementation

of trading emission systems, having or binding standards for new and efficient engines, set rules

for green fuel quality and support as well as promotion of alternative fuel.

Agencies Concerned

Internationally, the efforts to reduce the level of emissions has made nations or countries

as well as cities to come up with their own as well as international laws and legislation or put

supportive measures in place, some of which have already been adapted, shared and replicated.

For example, the European Parliament has continued to play and active role in the promotion of

low carbon emissions transport and support of ample green transport emissions policies. A good
example is the EP delegation that will take place on 21st Conference of Parties to the UNFCCC

(United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change that will take place in Paris, that

will be hosted in 2018 (Gray, Laing & Docherty, 2017).

In the US, transportation accounts for more than 2/3rds of the nations carbon emissions

gases and its emissions are on the increase more rapidly than that of all other sectors. Scholars

such as David Greene and Andreas Schafer have found that a great number of opportunities

available at the moment to reduce the transportation sector effect on climate. A number of these

actions would also help in other national and international priorities, such as reducing US

dependence on oil imports. The latest Pew Center reports denote that the first building block in

the efforts to examine key areas or sectors, technologies as well as policies that are able to

construct more solutions of climate change. The idea is that there ought to be a number of

solutions that can change the current status of green energy in the transport sector.

Solution to Carbon Emissions from Transport Industry

Now is the time to start the change. Fuel economy for trucks as well as that for cars

should be increased by 40% over the next 20 years using a ready and reliable market economy

technology as net saving level. This can only be done if the fuel economy is taken into account.

Increasing the efficiency of vehicles such a aircraft and train takes time hence the best recon test

will be that of cars and trucks. With such changes, it will be very easy to better the green energy

use in the transport sector.

There is need for a sustainable effort that will take many years. Technologies that are available

should be able to offer change in the fuel economy in transport sector for 60% by 2030.

Transformation of land use patterns to allow more efficient travel or a transition to hydrogen
based transportation systems is the key answer that calls for decades of incremental change to be

able to steer reduction in carbon emissions (Rashidi, Stadelmann & Patt, 2017).

Research and Development and Voluntary help are needed but not enough; mandatory

policies are important. Since transport fuel economy is undervalued in the market domain,

policies and other mandatory standard regulations as well as pubic information and knowledge

are needed to pull technologies changes and improvements in the market. Increase in carbon

emission fuel has gotten worse in the recent past due to lack of proper technology, but also

because of lack of better and implemented policies and regulations. Hydrogen gets a bigger share

of the no-zero greenhouse gas emissions but most of the governments are not ready to support

the changes due to poor and non-clear policy direction that can drive investment in zero carbon

gases.

There is need for a mix of policies and there are massive of them to select from.

Opportunity for significant emission reduction that includes implementation of carbon constraint,

increase in standards for automobiles, changing and blending low carbon gasoline as well as

changing land use patterns in urban design and planning could be a solution to the increased use

of carbon emissions in the globe. Authors estimate that a combination of reliable and considerate

measure would reduce carbon emission in transport sector by 30 percent by 2016 and around

75% by 2030.

Policies and Regulations

The national program mandate with the work of greenhouse emissions (GHG) and fuel economy

for light duty vehicles were developed in 2015 by the jointly by EPA and the National Highway

Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA).

 This will result in an average industry fleet-wide rate of 170 grams/mile of (CO2) in

model year 2030, that is equal to 52.3 miles per gallon (mpg) (if attained wholly finished

fuel economy enhancements);

 It is intended to cur the use of 7 billion metric tons of GHG over an entire lifetime of in

the transport sector in a model years of 2015-2030;

 It will be able to save families more than $2.8 trillion in fuel transportation costs; and

 Reduce peoples dependence on oil by more than 2 million barrels per day in 2025.
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Opportunities. In Creating Low Carbon Cities (pp. 75-88). Springer, Cham.

Gray, D., Laing, R., & Docherty, I. (2017). Delivering lower carbon urban transport choices:

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