 Is sustainable transport policy sustainable?Jonas Eliasson () and Stef Proost Transport Policy, 2015, vol. 37, issue C, 92-100 Abstract: This paper discusses a specific part of sustainable transport policy, namely policies to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from the transport sector. We explain how assessments of such policies will overestimate their effectiveness if market responses are not taken into account. The substantial difference between market price and extraction cost of oil means that consumption reductions will be watered down by price responses causing increased consumption in other places (spatial leakage) and in the future (intertemporal leakage). The difference between market price and extraction cost also has negative implications for the viability of alternative technologies. Leakage effects become larger when consumption reductions are only undertaken by a subset of countries: we review some theoretical evidence why strong binding international climate agreements are so difficult to reach and to enforce. All this may require rethinking climate policies for the transport sector: What policies remain cost effective for reducing greenhouse gas emissions? Keywords: Climate policy; Sustainable transport; Oil consumption; International negotiation; Fuel efficiency of cars (search for similar items in EconPapers) Downloads: (external link) Related works: Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:trapol:v:37:y:2015:i:c:p:92-100 Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from DOI: 10.1016/j.tranpol.2014.09.010 Access Statistics for this article Transport Policy is currently edited by Y. Hayashi More articles in Transport Policy from Elsevier |
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