Fondation EurActiv organised for Monday 28 March a lunchtime Stakeholder Workshop on transport emissions and the White Paper on the Future of Transport adopted by the European Commission that day. The workshop was organised with the support of ExxonMobil.

Programme:

The transport sector will have to reduce its emissions by 45-60% below 1990 levels if the EU is to keep with its climate change objectives for 2050. The European Commission’s White Paper on the Future of Transport will set out a wide array of options to achieve this.

• How can EU policy shape the right framework for a cost-efficient switch to lower carbon transport? Can better implementation of existing legislation contribute to this goal?
• The Commission is proposing to follow more systematically the ‘polluter pays’ principle. Which market-based instruments can enforce it? In which sectors can a cap-and-trade mechanism be successfully applied? Where is fuel taxation better suited?
• By 2050 European transport infrastructure will have been redesigned to serve the needs of an integrated Single Transport Area. What will be in this context the different roles of network innovation (e.g. ‘green corridors’), vehicle innovation (e.g. hybrids and fully electric cars), and Intelligent Transport Systems (ITS)?
• Where is technology now, and how can it contribute to making the vision of a single EU transport area reality? What alternatives are available to conventional fuels, and what will R&D deliver in the next decade?

Contributors included:

• Matthias RUETE, Director General, DG MOVE
• Dirk STERCKX, MEP
• Joost VAN ROOST, President, ExxonMobil Petroleum & Chemical Benelux
• Jos DINGS, Director, Transport & Environment
• Kai LÜCKE, Director Public Affairs, Robert Bosch GmbH

Moderator: Frédéric SIMON, Managing Editor, EurActiv
Chair: Rick ZEDNÍK, CEO, EurActiv