Travelling around: Getting the balance right!

Travelling around: Getting the balance right! Rhys Taylor, Christchurch, May 2010, for Energy Awareness Week. National Coordinator SLET www.sustainableliving.org.nz

In NZ, We Love our Cars! Is it an addiction?

How about non-driving streets? • If it’s an addiction... • Perhaps we do not need the technical fix of new fuels or car re-design, but a social change, especially here in cities?

Currently…Lots of Cars • 48million cars/year are manufactured globally • 40m cars/yr discarded in USA+ Japan+ Europe • NZ has twice level of car ownership of the UK, near- equal to USA. Canterbury 700 per 1000 people. • Fuel demand was growing 4% a year until 2008 price rise. • Makinga car consumes (embodied) equivalent of 50%+ of the total energy that the average car will burn as fuel for its first 10 yrs, or 28% of its lifetime energy. Roads and maintenance represent 10% of the lifetime energy and fuel the majority. Fuel efficiency is thus very important.

Ecological footprints • Travel represents 18% of global citizens’ combined individual footprints and a further 13% comes from shared infrastructure (including roads) • In the next decade, both individual choices and public investment choices will need to move us away from car dependence and back towards living within planetary limits.

Why Drive alone? ...Why not? • Saves travel time. But shortens life. • Privacy, my music. Prefer be sociable. • Need to visit shops. Could get delivery. • Getting old & unfit. Walk or cycle to be fit • ‘Cos I can afford to. Why waste money. • Disregard the future. Care about the future. • Out of the weather. Nature-connected. • Pollution marginal. Pollution matters. It’s a matter of values, and influenced by society

Time-saver, or life-shortener? • Road congestion trend = up 40% from 2000 to 2020 • Is it really time saving to commute by car? You can read and chat while on a bus; get fitter when cycling or walking (& save on gym fees); and no parking cost! • Recent ‘commuter challenge’ in Christchurch showed cyclists matching car travel times into workplaces (and that’s my own experience too, as a city cyclist). The road rage & the queues...

Motoring now looks un-civilized • Health costs – for drivers and $ for society • Costs to economy as fuel and other mineral resources become scarce. Boon becomes a bane if we are left dependent/vulnerable. • Environmental costson quality of human life now, & on biodiversity (e.g. coastal US oil spill) • Future environmental impacts, as fossil carbon released persists in atmosphere. We could easily cut 10% in this year: www.1010nz.com • Loss of land to car movement, parking and sales/support, community severance by main roads, noise intrusion.

Nations of Obese Non-exercisers Walk, bike, transit up NZ? Obesity down

Vehicle Emissions to Air • Exhaust nitrogen oxides (NOx) and hydrocarbons, in summer sun create a ‘photochemical smog’ that damages lungs, prompting asthma, worsening bronchitis. • Tiny soot particles from burnt fuels, especially diesel, also carry irritants and carcinogens deep into our lungs. • Vehicle emissions may kill more city people than local road accidents (Auckland study). • Carbon monoxide (CO) is toxic; and both CO and CO2 emissions are ‘greenhouse gases’.

City Carbon Emission Sources Over half is car travel and freight: even if our homes become efficient, we must also tackle transport to reduce our carbon emissions

NZ Carbon Emissions Growing • New Zealand is 4th largest producer of greenhouse gases per capita (measured as CO2 equivalents, coming after Australia, USA and Canada), but on less coal per person than them. • By 2005, NZ carbon emissions had grown 37% over 1990 levels. Increase in livestock numbers is a significant methane contributor, but a large part of increase is CO2 from growth in NZ car ownership and high use of cars. Air travel only a small part but it’s growing fast too. + + +

Alarming global change & trend We are in new territory for CO2 levels, beyond historical variation of ice ages and warm periods

Climate change evidence is strong • Greenland, Antarctic and mountain ice melting • Storms more frequent and damaging (large rise in global insurance claims) • Risk of runaway change from feed-back processes in oceans & tundra if >2deg. temp rise • Inaction will cost more than precaution! Arctic ice 2009: annual thaw (yellow) has grown Arctic ice 1980-2000

Peak Cheap Oil around 2010 • Global oil field discovery peaked in early 1960s • Annual finds have declined since few ‘easy’ liquid oil reserves were left to find. • Production peaked 25 - 40 yrs after discovery peak in each oil region, so far • 90% of all conventional oil reserve discovered globally is now in production stage • NZ potential oil is mostly offshore & costly to access.

Oil Supply Map of the Planet • Oilfields in countries marked red have passed peak oil production, green were yet to do, 2009.

Competition for oil – so useful Fuels, lubricants, car-making, plastics, paint, PCs, pesticide, fertiliser, pharmaceuticals, etc. Hard to replace by coal or electricity.

Are We Hooked On Oil? • 95% of all transportation, whether by land, air or sea, is fuelled by oil. Not enough biofuel to replace this, nor renewable electricity generation nor grid capacity. • 95% of all goods in shops involved the use of oil. • 95% of all (USA) food products require oil use. • The world consumes approx 85 million barrels of oil a day (approx 5,500 Olympic sized swimming pools) • Compare with 1990 global oil consumption at just 66 million barrels a day • Even George Bush admitted USA has an oil addiction!

Can Technology Help? • Lower-sulphur fuels, bio fuels from wastes or algae but not tropical crops (risk of deforestation) • Emission controls, CATs • ‘Hybrid’ electric/petrol engines to raise km/litre. • Light-weight aluminium, plastic, carbon fibre materials & smaller car size • Plug in to mains power? (only if ‘spare’ renewable NZ electricity generation is available to charge these, not if coal or gas fired, else a large carbon impact!) • Efficient buses, trams, rail. Electric cars becoming available. Their batteries need improvement & ‘plug-in hybrid’ option not yet available in NZ. Hybrid car dual-power system is complex to construct & maintain, and the vehicle is heavy.

Might cars be gone by 2050? Through combined resource shortages and climate change?

Walking, cycle, tram, bus... • Flights, ferries and car with a single traveler = the least efficient users of energy per passenger km traveled. • Car & bus with several sharing passengers are better efficiency; electric trains & trams more so. • Cycling, without a hot shower each time, or walking, are the most energy efficient. You might wish to show “My other car’s a bicycle”as a sticker on your one car! (these are available from Sustainable Living)

Electric bicycle option • Got a hill or headwind on your homeward commuting journey? An electric assisted bike might help. Suppliers inc: www.ecogo.co.nz based in Christchurch andhttp://theelectricbicycle.co.nz/with conversion kits available Folding bikes for city use.

Buses becoming more attractive? • Faster city journeys - simpler ticket systems (cards), low fares for return trips & discounts for regular commuters, pensioners & children • Knowing when bus is due (timetable, website, and electronic displays) • More comfortable seats • Bus lanes & bus priority • Shelters at bus stops • Cycle carriers for hill routes & via tunnels • See www.metroinfo.org.nz

More Cycling in Christchurch • Fewer cars and lower speeds would make safer spaces for cyclists: a current perception of hazard keeps many women, elderly and children off their bikes. • Infrastructure investment pays off: UK study showed each £10,000 invested needs only to generate one extra cyclist, each year, over a 30 year period in order to break even. Savings mostly in health and reduced oil use. • See www.spokes.org.nzandhttp://can.org.nz

More Walking in Christchurch • More people walking more often, creates ‘living streets’ vibrancy, especially in the city centre. (International expert Jan Gehl agreed in a recent study for CCC) • Everyone walks – those for whom it’s the only choice and those who walk before/after other modes. Poorly designed streets make it harder, inconvenient or hazardous. We could do better. • Seewww.livingstreets.org.nz

Education helps influence behaviour • E.g. Transition Town groups focus on learning and action; and Sustainable Living course participants show these travel modes adopted after evening courses, building on environmental interest with know-how & motivation: www.sustainableliving.org.nz

Education Alone is Not Sufficient • People need financial incentives to change faster. • A role for good design, and investment in infrastructure supporting car-alternatives: walking, cycling, trams & buses, also car sharing. • Holistic policy making by central government, accepting that spend from one agency gains savings for taxpayers in another, and that decision horizon must be greater than 3 years. • Business and Councils may lead, especially if using a strategic sustainability framework (e.g. Natural Step adopted by CCC, UC and some local firms www.thenaturalstep.org/en/new-zealand)

Thanks Now on your bikes! Or your feet... And leave the car at home...

Travelling around: Getting the balance right!