A Critical Conversation on Climate Change ... - Green Choices

lessons unlearned 113Figure 3. A Vicious Circle in UK TransportSource: Levett-Therivel Sustainability ConsultantsDrivers lessbike- awareHostile roadenvironmentMorecongestionWorse busservicePeople avoidwalking & cyclingSchool runLongerjourneysUnfitness,obesityTown centresdegeneratePeople moveto suburbsMore carjourneysCar moreattractiveShops etc moveto car accesiblelocationsFewer buspassangersOnce you have acar, driving ischeapestMore diffusejourney patternsBus safetyworriesMore peoplebuy carsLess ticketincomeBut won’t really steep price increases provide enough incentive for changinglocked-in technologies?Not if people are highly dependent on them and no clear alternativesare available. For example, because the ‘current vehicle stockand the road infrastructure’ in Northern countries ‘makes individualcar ownership and use very easy’ 181 and because people still have togo to work, however much it costs, rising petrol prices may leave demandrelatively unaffected. According to energy economist PhilipVerleger, ‘it would take a doubling of petrol prices to reduce Americanpetrol consumption by just 5 per cent’. 182 Citizens in countriessuch as the US do use less energy when it grows more expensive, butthat use changes very slowly. 183 The other side of this coin is popularprotests against petrol price increases of the kind that have swept theUK and the US recently.Beyond a certain point, systems analyst Gar Lipow suggests, commodityprices – including the prices of pollution permits – can’t playmuch of a role in the North’s transition to a lower-carbon economy.Public investment and regulation are needed to facilitate better individualchoices:Look at the U.S. – where automobile efficiency more than doubledfrom around 14 to around 25 miles per gallon when [government]standards were imposed – then stopped rising when trade decisions,congressional actions, and light truck loopholes stalled standards.