IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/ids/ijsusd/v12y2009i1p24-47.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Techno-optimism: progress towards CO 2 reduction targets in transport: a UK and London perspective

Author

Listed:
  • David Banister
  • Robin Hickman

Abstract

Transport is making a very limited contribution to carbon emissions reduction targets in the UK, and this paper argues the case for a substantial shift in thinking away from the concentration on technological alternatives to a revised approach that combines technological efficiency with behavioural change. The paper presents a critique of the UK approach to energy and transport, commenting on the limited approach and measures used, and their effectiveness. The necessary policy measures are available, but at present there is not sufficient political and public support for wide-ranging, effective action. Technology on its own will not be enough. This message is then reinforced with a more local perspective in London where considerable efforts are being made to make London a sustainable city, but even here where opportunities are present, it is the growth in travel and in particular in aviation, that makes transport-based targets very difficult to achieve.

Suggested Citation

  • David Banister & Robin Hickman, 2009. "Techno-optimism: progress towards CO 2 reduction targets in transport: a UK and London perspective," International Journal of Sustainable Development, Inderscience Enterprises Ltd, vol. 12(1), pages 24-47.
  • Handle: RePEc:ids:ijsusd:v:12:y:2009:i:1:p:24-47
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.inderscience.com/link.php?id=27527
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Calvin Jones, 2010. "Less and Less Favoured? Britain's Regions in the Energy Crunch," Environment and Planning A, , vol. 42(12), pages 3006-3022, December.
    2. Focas, Caralampo, 2016. "Travel behaviour and CO2 emissions in urban and exurban London and New York," Transport Policy, Elsevier, vol. 46(C), pages 82-91.
    3. Banister, David & Hickman, Robin, 2013. "Transport futures: Thinking the unthinkable," Transport Policy, Elsevier, vol. 29(C), pages 283-293.
    4. Hickman, Robin & Ashiru, Olu & Banister, David, 2010. "Transport and climate change: Simulating the options for carbon reduction in London," Transport Policy, Elsevier, vol. 17(2), pages 110-125, March.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:ids:ijsusd:v:12:y:2009:i:1:p:24-47. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Sarah Parker (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.inderscience.com/browse/index.php?journalID=25 .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.