In order to cope with environment problems, the two available options are mitigation and adaptation. Climate mitigation is any action taken to permanently eliminate or reduce the long-term risk and hazards of the climate change to human life & property.Whereas, climate adaptation is the ability of a system to adjust with climate change including climate variability & extreme to moderate potential damage, to take advantage of opportunities, or to cope with the consequences. Climate change is the result of green house accumulation in the atmosphere, which records the aggregation of billions of individual decisions, and transportation sector is estimated to contribute 14% emission in the world, 27% in USA, 24% in Europe and 30% in UK. Similarly, road transport accounts for more than 72% of all transport related C02 emissions. It shows that transportation sector is one of the vital sectors to cause climate change. Also, the risk and hazard associated with climate change affect transportation sector. It is foremost important to develop transport related effective policies for climate mitigation & adaptation. Some of the effective policies for mitigations are;
a. Avoid- Use of information technology can decrease travel demand which reduces VMT (vehicle mile travel). Use of land to make transit-oriented development (TOD) helps to create compact, dense, urban space around the transit station which leads to decrease the travel demand. Use of e-commerce, e-learning, e-delivery, e-health service reduces the number of passengers. Similarly, ride sharing, car-pooling, congestion pricing helps to change the behavior of people which decrease the frequency of trip and no of passengers.
b. Shift- This policy encourages passengers to change the mode of transportation. The switch may be from private vehicles to public vehicle and public vehicle to cycling. Discouraging private vehicles through fuel tax & pollution tax can shift the mode of transport. Introduction of BRT, public transportation increases no of passengers per vehicle which reduces the no of vehicle as well as carbon emission.
c. Improve- Use of technologies & new innovations to reduce fuel consumption, emission, weight of vehicle helps to reduce green house gas aggregation. New vehicles like electric vehicle (EV), hydraulic electric vehicle (HEV), high speed rail (HSV), transport demand management (TDM) helps to lower the carbon emission.
Some of the effective policies for climate adaptation are:
a. Grey Infrastructure policies- Realignment/relocation of transportation structures, change in design standards and planning for roads, rails & other infrastructures to cope with warming & drainage, heat resilient road pavements, air conditioning helps to prevent from the disaster caused by climate change.
b. Green Infrastructure policies- Prevention from floods and landslides through bio-engineering activities, plantation of trees, providing green belt in median, maintain natural ecosystem increases the resilience against disasters.
c. transport related effective policies for climate mitigation and/or adaptationSoft policies- Application of procedures, incentives, education, communication, information helps to minimize the effect of disaster. Integration of climate change consideration into national transport policy, investment in research & development, improved technologies & integration with key sectors and effective disaster management techniques are the required soft tools for adaptation.
If we incorporate above policies related to transportation sector for climate mitigation or adaptation, these policies will have short term and long-term impact on economic growth. On a short run, these policies may retard employment rate, productivity, production and economic growth, whereas in long run, it can boost the economic growth. The mitigation strategy avoid can decrease the short-term productivity due to decrease in vehicle mile travel (VMT), frequency of travel, number of passengers, change in land use, behavior of people etc. Similarly, shift in mode of vehicle increases congestion, delay and increase in travel time in public vehicle which deteriorate the living standard of people. In fact, public transportation in developing countries are very poor, and even in developed countries, it is not flexible enough. The adoption and development of new technologies like electric vehicles, high speed rail, hybrid electric vehicle requires huge investment and it also involves financial and technical risk. But, in a long run, the scenario is different because these policies can shift the paradigm of transportation sector. Use of ICT, e-commerce, e-learning will increase economy in long run of time. Similarly, improved vehicles, new technologies, can be more effective and efficient which increases the efficiency, leading to higher economy. Change in land use like transit-oriented development (TOD) creates huge employment opportunities and generates more production.
The climate adaptation policies like grey infrastructure approach, green infrastructure approach and soft approach, involves increase in initial cost of project. However, these activities minimize hazards due to risk and uncertainty of climate change. Initially, the project seems to be costly, but looking at long term, it minimizes the maintenance & re-construction cost which makes the policy to be economic in long term. These policies help to improve disaster management endeavors and saves both human life & property. Although, these policies tend to decrease productivity, efficiency, leading to retard economic growth in short period of time, but the long run effect of these polices enhance economic growth.
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