EUROPE ON THE MOVE
Getting around is something we do every day but we don’t often stop to think about it.
Across Europe in 2007 people travelled an amazing 6,473 billion kilometres. That’s an average of over 13,000 km each and is a third of the way round the globe, from London to Singapore or Berlin to Sydney! [1]
It’s not just us, lots of the products we use travel a long way as well and our whole transport network of trains, planes, ships and cars accounts for over 31% of total energy used in Europe and is 23% of its carbon footprint. [2] [3]
CO2 emissions are a good indication of energy intelligence, as renewable energy sources are also cleaner.
The impact of different forms of transport varies with the number of people travelling together, the fuel used and the infrastructure needed including the 212,336 km of railways and 5 million km of roads. [4] [5]
Some transport types, like planes and cars are heavily reliant on fossil fuels and are damaging due to the pollution they cause and other problems like congestion, accidents and asthma.
There are some successful solutions to reducing car use in cities such as congestion charging which encourages public transport and car sharing. Some car sharing schemes, such as Mitfahrgelegenheit and StreetCar, are very easy to use and take very little organisation.
Unfortunately there is a growing trend for people to hop on a plane and fly short distances for business, on holiday and visiting family and friends. This can change with the development of new high speed rail links between most large cities. There are 5,764 km of high speed rail network currently in place with another 2,340 km to be built by 2012 in Spain, Germany, France and Italy. [6]
With fossil fuel supplies due to peak, electric railways are the future as they can be powered by large scale renewable energy, from wind farms in the breezy North Sea to solar farms in sunny Spain.
Trains are an intelligent and efficient form of transport. That is why they are at the heart of the Energy Union project.
On board with the tour are Coldcut from Ninja Tune with their special A/V film, Brightonart with their innovative interactive Gridio art-installation and Friends of the Earth who are organizing lots of exciting political panel discussions and workshops.
So if you’re travelling locally why not cycle or walk? It’s great exercise and saves lots of cash as well as lots of energy. It may seem a small gesture, but you will be joining everyone else in the Energy Union.
More Information
the IUSES project has an excellent transport handbook -
www.iuses.eu/materiali/eng/transportENwcover.pdf
www.iuses.eu
Notes
[A] note on assumptions:
car: Euro3 Diesel 1,5 Passengers (average car, average utilization)
public transport: average utilization
aircraft: average value from all aircraft types of Lufthansa fleet for domestic flights with average utilization ratio,
incl. arrival and departure as well as taxiing traffic on the airfield
see also - www.unep.org/climateneutral/Default.aspx?tabid=921
References
[1] EU energy and transport in figures (2009) European Commission Directorate-General for Energy and Transport, Luxembourg: Office for the Official Publications of the European Communities p.97
[2] Ibid p.199
[3] Ibid p.36
[4] Ibid p.146
[5] ibid p.149
[6] Ibid p.150
[7] DB Environmental Mobility Check tool -
www.reiseauskunft.bahn.de/bin/query.exe
© Energy Union. Photos by Energy Union unless credited
