Green and pleasant UK - transport

Transport offers major opportunities for change. Teleworking is already a practical proposition. Many of us are beginning to realize that making a journey on foot or bicycle keeps us fitter and more alert. Road travel accounts for over 80% of the total energy consumed in transport. We need to change the emphasis from personal to social. Park and ride schemes have the potential to reduce fuel consumption for commuters and shoppers by perhaps 50% given appropriate investments in public transport. Improving the quality of service and tuning rail fares have the potential to attract substantial passenger and freight traffic from the roads.

Air travel accounts for only a few percent of the total energy expended on transport but receives great attention from the green lobby because it is the fastest growing component. Improving fuel efficiency, increasing load factors and switching to rail for domestic and European destinations would give us a good chance of holding current emission levels.

Overall it should be possible to achieve a 30% reduction in carbon dioxide emissions from transport

Green and pleasant UK - land use

Changes in land use have two possible effects. CO2 emissions are increased by conversion of forest and grassland to other uses such as factories and housing; CO2 removal is increased by planting of forest and abandonment of managed lands. Emissions and removals are currently about 8 MtC and 5 MtC per year respectively. Halting the conversion to other uses, e.g. by more intensive use of brownfield sites for factories and housing, and slightly more than doubling the amount of forest to about 5 million hectares shifts from net emission of 3 MtC to net removal of 10 MtC per year. This future UK is beginning to look a more green and pleasant land.

Why don't we plant sufficient forest and woodland to balance all emissions? One hectare of a maturing temperate forest removes nearly 4 tons of carbon per year, enough to offset one person's requirements for fossil fuel. Unfortunately the UK landmass is not quite 25 million hectares, less than half the area that would be required for 55 million people. On the other hand, such a strategy would be viable in North America or France where the population densities are much lower than in the UK.