Race 2 Paris Shifting gears for climate action: Transforming Europe's transportation

While the clock is ticking in the race to reach the goals of the Paris Agreement, Europe’s national transport sectors stand out due to their failure to achieve significant reductions in greenhouse gas emissions. Thanks to fossil interest groups and their allies, relevant policymakers, representatives of the corporate constituencies, and the corresponding lobbies and advocacy groups have successfully resisted taking necessary measures in many areas of the transport system. Obstructive activities are growing across Europe despite the escalating climate crisis. Unprecedented heat waves and severe repercussions of droughts, fires on the one hand, and floods on the other hand, are already affecting communities across Europe much like in the rest of the world.

With our Race2Paris report, we examine several relevant characteristics of the development of the transportation sector in the EU and in seven European countries: Austria, Belgium, the Czech Republic, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, and Spain. Despite global commitments, our findings reveal a disconcerting reality – the transport sectors in these nations lag significantly behind the aspirations of the Paris Agreement, especially when it comes to the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions.

The chapter on transport related climate protection policies at the European level reveals how political forces aligned with the automotive, aviation, and fossil industries have impeded the task to mitigate climate collapse. Players of the oil and gas sectors as well as car manufacturers exert substantial political influence and, for example, obstruct the implementation of stricter greenhouse gas emission standards at the European level.

Our research reveals both differences and similarities in each country’s transportation sector. Belgium and Austria, for example, grapple with a company car system hindering progress toward sustainable mobility. The Netherlands shines with its widespread bicycle culture, showcasing a commitment to eco-friendly urban mobility. However, the sale of environmentally damaging SUVs has increased dramatically in recent years there as well. Similarly, car ownership continues to rise in the Czech Republic, with SUVs dominating new vehicle registrations. Europe’s automotive heartland, Germany, has shown persistence in blocking European climate protection policies in recent years as well as preventing the introduction of an overall speed limit on German highways. In Spain and Italy, high-speed train connections have increased. However, these primarily connect large urban centres, while medium-sized cities and rural areas have experienced dramatic declines in their public transport connectivity.

Civil society groups, active nationally and locally, with their numerous initiatives and very specific policy suggestions on how to tackle climate issues, however, spark hope that the transformation of the transportation sector is indeed possible. At the same time, national and local climate protection policies, alongside civil society initiatives, provide a promising foundation for tackling the urgent task of revolutionising the transportation sector in the years ahead. In Germany and Austria, nationwide public transport ticket initiatives have been introduced to promote public transportation as a viable and affordable alternative to motorised private transport. In Belgium, a system was put in place where if an employer agrees to pay 80 percent of a public transport ticket, the federal government covers the remaining 20 percent. These initiatives have been a step in the right direction by considerably reducing the cost of public transportation. The Italian city of Genoa demonstrates how ticket costs are a key leverage point for increasing public transport usage. Since the city introduced free public transportation, its usage has gone up by a third. Another positive example is civil society organisations in Prague, which have initiated protests advocating for the implementation of a 30-kilometre-per-hour speed limit throughout the capital. Meanwhile, the Spanish city of Pontevedra serves as a prime example for the benefits of a car-free city centre.