2023-06-13 12:05:25
How to decarbonize our travels? This is the question answered by a note from Terra Nova published on Tuesday, June 13. The think tank anchored on the left intends to tackle the climate challenge, without losing sight of the socially and politically explosive nature of certain environmental measures.
In this forty-page document, the co-authors also attempt to reconcile short-term issues (energy independence, purchasing power, territorial cohesion) and longer-term issues (carbon neutrality, health, preservation of biodiversity).
Express coach lines, a pragmatic solution
Unsurprisingly, the professor of economics at Paris-Dauphine Patrice Geoffron and the lawyer Benoît Thirion plead in favor of a postponement of the road to the train, based on a plan of 100 billion euros for the rail by 2040 announced recently.
While, following an infringement of European rules, Fret SNCF must sell part of its activities to competition, they insist on the need to intensify efforts in the field of freight transport, with the development of combined transport , which combines road and rail.
Although they argue for increased use of rail, the authors start from the observation that the use of the road remains “predominant and enduring”. It is therefore important to adapt the strategies as closely as possible to the territories, to avoid that journeys by car are carried out alone (high-frequency carpooling lines) and that they are as short as possible (creation of car parks facilitating the pursuit of the journey with public transport).
Generating solar energy along highways
Patrice Geoffron and Benoît Thirion approve the future creation of around fifteen metropolitan express networks (the “metropolitan RERs”). But rather than waiting for the all-out creation of other new train lines, they recommend developing, as Île-de-France will do, a much faster and less expensive solution: an express coach service to high frequency, able to offer a reliable alternative to the car.
It also involves taking advantage of unused land along highways, rest areas and service areas – the same goes for railway lines – in order to produce solar energy. “Vinci Autoroutes, which operates half of the motorway network under concession, estimates the production potential on its perimeter at 1 GW, which would correspond to the consumption of electric vehicles traveling on the motorway network under concession in 2030”, can we read.
Better targeted aid for the purchase of electric vehicles
For the authors of the report, the State must fully play its role of strategist if it wants, as it announces, to prepare the country to face a gradual increase in temperatures up to +4°C by 2100. In particular, it must rethink its role in the electrification of vehicles “by reallocating aid for the acquisition of electric vehicles to industry, upstream, and to the most virtuous uses (based in particular on a vehicle weight criterion) and the most constrained audiences”. In this way, it would be possible to finance the electric car at 100 € per month, a measure suggested to candidate-president Emmanuel Macron by the general manager of Terra Nova Thierry Pech.
« Decarbonization requires a combination of regulatory, tax and tariff, binding and incentive measures, the success of which also depends on the introduction of accompanying measures”, insist the editors.
Patrice Geoffron and Benoît Thirion take into account a possible tightening of carbon taxation, at national and European levels, through redistribution in the form of a “climate check” paid to low-income households and increased for those living in areas far from transport in common. They also evoke the track of urban tolls, with a low amount (1 to 2 € per day) and from which the less well-off public would be exempted.
But the way that seems « immediately more practicable and therefore preferable » is to adopt “prohibitions or regulatory “forcing” measures accompanied by financial penalties”. And the editors quote renewal quotas for corporate fleets.
Betting on the renewal of company fleets
As soon as they have more than 100 vehicles in their fleet, since 2022 they must incorporate at least 10% low-emission vehicles. A proportion that will gradually increase to 50% in 2030. The note suggests extending this system to all companies with more than ten vehicles and hitting companies that do not comply with the rule: “This measure would also have the advantage of fairly quickly creating a second-hand secondary market allowing low-income households to access electric vehicles. »
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