14 December 2012
Dods, in association with The House magazine and PoliticsHome.com, is delighted to launch the final policy report from this year’s Dods Sustainable Transport Dialogue, ‘The Green Routes of Growth: Sustainable transport and the economy’.
The report was launched at a parliamentary reception on Wednesday 12th December with keynote speeches from Norman Baker MP, Parliamentary Under Secretary of State for Transport and Shadow Minister for Transport, Lilian Greenwood MP.
The report focusses on how close we are to meeting our environmental goals for transport, including aviation, rail and ultra-low carbon vehicles; how these threads can be drawn together and reconciled with the need to keep the economy moving forward.
The main findings to come out of the report are:
• 77 per cent of MPs polled answered either “somewhat” or “very sceptical” about the Government’s ability to balance economic growth alongside the development of a sustainable transport system.
• 62 per cent of MPs stated that economic growth was the top priority for transport policy. By contrast, only four per cent of participating MPs identified cutting emissions as a priority.
• Transport can be made sustainable without cutting the volume of traffic on our roads, rails and in our skies. Promising technological developments, including aviation biofuels, alternative power sources and better signalling equipment all offer this possibility.
• A continued commitment to invest in R&D projects remains a critical factor.
Speaking at the report launch, Parliamentary Under Secretary of State for Transport Norman Baker MP said:
"Economic growth and carbon reduction are both essential to the health and wealth of the country and I would invite these cynics to visit some of the schemes we are investing in to make it easier for commuters, students and shoppers to travel in a cleaner, greener way.
"These include improved cycle links to employment areas, new park and ride facilities to town centres and cycling facilities at stations to make it possible for commuters to leave their car at home. We are also encouraging the growth of low emission vehicles - an area of green technology which holds huge potential for technology businesses in the UK."
The Dods Sustainable Transport Dialogue involves a cross-section of the UK’s transport providers; GM, Boeing, Thales, Institute of Mechanical Engineering and Centro, who throughout 2012, engaged Government, parliamentarians in Westminster, members of the public and private companies within the transport sector to investigate how best to improve the UK’s transport networks, whilst remaining focused on sustainable options and how these solutions can benefit the nation as a whole.