La importancia del transporte de larga distancia

 Aquí en el IIT llevamos tiempo insistiendo en la importancia de, a la hora de descarbonizar el transporte, focalizarnos en el transporte de pasajeros de larga distancia, y no tanto en las ciudades (aunque también, claro). De hecho, estamos preparando junto con EsadeEcPol un policy brief sobre este tema.

Pero mientras, y para comprobar que en todas partes están igual, aquí va un artículo recientemente publicado en Nature Energy (que ha encontrado Manu) sobre este modo de transporte en Inglaterra:

Long-distance passenger travel has received rather sparse attention for decarbonization. Here we characterize the long-distance travel pattern in England and explore its importance on carbon emissions from and decarbonization of passenger travel. We find that only 2.7% of a person’s trips are for long distance travel (>50 miles one-way), but they account for 61.3% of the miles and 69.3% of the greenhouse gas (CO2 equivalent) emissions from passenger travel, highlighting its importance for decarbonizing passenger transport. Long-distance travel per person has also been increasing over time, trending in the opposite direction to shorter-distance travel. Flying for leisure and social purposes are the largest contributors to long distance miles and emissions, and these miles are also increasing. Overall, per capita travel emissions have started decreasing slowly from 2007, but are still higher than in 1997. We propose a new metric—emissions reduction sensitivity (% emission reduced/% trips altered)—to understand the efficiency of travel demand related initiatives to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Long-distance travel—especially flying—can offer orders of magnitude larger emissions reduction sensitivity compared with urban travel, which suggests that a proportionate policy approach is necessary.