Sustainable Mobility and Climate Economics

The Austrian transport sector is among the biggest energy consuming sectors contributing a majority share of around 26 percent of CO2 emissions to the Austrian energy related emissions budget. At the same time transportation showed the highest growth in transport related emissions. Austrian transportation trends are analysed from 1990 up to the year 2005. Steady growth in transport and related emissions is, however, detrimental to the aim of climate protection. The concept of sustainable mobility seeks to decouple transport related emissions from economic growth making transport more energy efficient. But the transport sector is neither part of the EU emissions trading system nor do the flexible mechanisms of the Kyoto protocol play any role in transport policies. In addition, traditional fiscal transport measures, e.g., fuel taxes and motor vehicle taxes are not designed to set incentives towards less energy consumption, i.e., towards energy efficient transport technologies and reduced travel demand. Growth patterns are, hence, supported by a lack of proactive climate-related transport policies. In order to break the trend of ever rising transport emissions, a coherent set of transport policies aiming at the dissemination of energy efficiency technologies and at consolidating travel demands needs to be established.