Unless they are of an apocalyptic nature, disasters like the
recent European floods are likely to revitalise interest in environmental
issues and highlight the need for more sustainable development. Tackling the
consequences of the floods in Germany, Austria, Slovakia and The Czech Republic
can thus be a big impetus for a reform of European policies that have had a
role to play in this environmental disaster – amongst them transportation. The
urgent need for transport reform is reflected in the scope of the floods’
impacts on both local life and national economies estimated to be more than €
25 billion. Such impacts underline the fragile balance between nature and
culture – between water systems and transport systems. In doing so, they stress
the need for a European transport policy that turns away from dominant “predict
and supply policies” towards more sustainable transport demand management.
European transport policy seems to
be guided by one overarching principle – that is to say, the free movement of
goods and people within the Union. Although this principle is now positioned
next to more humanitarian principles like “improving the quality of live” it
still appears to be the sine qua non of European transport planning and policy.
Dismantling all sorts of political, legal and geographical borders in order to
make way for passenger and goods transport has led to a Europe-wide
acceleration programme that causes more problems than it solves. The flooded
cities and towns along rivers like Elbe, Odder and Danube are shattering
illustrations of transportation’s unintended consequences. They reveal how
modern societies have created a risky transport system that has come to
threaten their social, economic and ecological foundation.
But apart from being an
illustration of an omnipresent “risk society”, this year’s summer floods invite
a closer look at some of the systemic consequences of unsustainable transport
policies and programmes. The floods show how manifold the environmental
implications of modern transport systems are – ranging from local pollution and
degradation to global climate change. They offer a good opportunity to unravel
how transport is tied to the environment – whether we like it or not – and how
important a change in the European Common Transport Policy has become.
What led to the floods were extreme weather conditions,
which broke long-standing rainfall records. Climate change is blamed for such
extreme weather. Experts frequently point at the increased frequency with which
storms, floods and droughts occur throughout the globe and link their cause to
man-made global warming. The greenhouse gas emissions that are warming the
atmosphere transform certain regions into permanent wetlands and others into
deserts. With almost 30% of all CO2-emissions, transportation is a
major contributor to such greenhouse effect.
Climate change, however, is not the only cause. The
hazardous implications of extreme rainfalls in Europe can only come into being
because of the anthropogenic alterations along Europe’s rivers and wetlands.
These alterations entail, for example, the draining of floodplains for new
settlements and transport infrastructure. With this land-take, the soil has
little chance to absorb enough rainwater to prevent the water levels from
rising. The rivers themselves have been regulated into streamlined inland
waterways in order to facilitate the traffic of ever faster and bigger ships.
Particularly the extension and embankment of rivers in conjunction with the
disappearance of river branches, islands and banks dramatically increase the
potential for extreme hydrological events. The European Environmental Agency
sees the main driving forces for floods as “climate change, land sealing,
changes in the catchment and in the flood-plain land use, population growth,
urbanisation and increasing settlement, roads and railways and hydraulic engineering
measures”.
But transportation is not only one of the most important
causes of flooding: it is also hardest hit when the dikes collapse. First
estimates of the destruction of national roads along the Elbe in Germany put
the damage at more than € 200 million. In addition, railroads and local
transport systems in that area, like the Dresden’s tramways, have suffered from
damages, which will certainly be greater. In other words, we are seeing a
boomerang effect that exposes unsustainable transport systems to their own negative
external effects.
The worst thing about governments’
responses to provide flood relief is that some measures are likely to reinforce
that boomerang effect. This self-destructive tendency, which seems to be
characteristic to any sort of unsustainable policy is exemplified by the
Disaster Relief Fund that was proposed by the European Commission at the end of
August. Although this proposal may provide aid for the flooded cities and towns
in Germany, Austria, Slovakia and The Czech Republic, it misses a unique
opportunity to prevent such disasters from happening again. Instead of tackling
some of the causes of the floods by reforming the Common Transport Policy, the
European Union now wants to spend up to €1 billion per year to relieve the
consequences of similar disasters.
Certain forms of relief and protection are merely designed
to reproduce past mistakes without preventing the floods in the same old way.
Re-establishing a destroyed transport system with many of its unsustainable
features will not help to induce the shift that is needed towards a socially
just, economically fair, and ecologically sound European transport policy.
The European Union now has the chance to revise some of its
transport policy goals and programmes in its response to the floods. They are
justification enough to reconsider questionable decisions that merely stimulate
further transport growth and do little to shift transport to less
climate-damaging modes. Moreover, the floods also challenge the myth that
inland navigation with its reckless regulation of rivers and flood plains is a
genuinely environmentally sound transport mode. European waterways may very
well make a contribution to sustainable transport by allowing road freight
transport to shift to inland navigation. However, such modal shift is only
economically fair, environmentally just and environmentally sound if the
draining of wetlands and dredging of rivers comes to an end. What is needed is
an intermodal transport system that integrates environmental aspects by using
existing capacities more efficiently. Such integrated mobility management has
to be accompanied by a fairer charging of infrastructure use that ends with the
hidden subsidies for unsustainable transport modes. Europe’s Common Transport
Policy must be guided by a decoupling of transport growth and economic growth.
It needs to promote spatial patterns that allow for a less transport-intensive
production, distribution and consumption of goods. At least it must ensure the
use of cleaner fuels and the progressive reduction of transport emissions by
forcing the right kind of technology. Only with less transport and more
sustainable mobility will Europe make certain that its rivers stay in their
beds.
More information
Jörg Beckmann, Policy Officer, T&E, joerg.beckmann@t-e.nu or +32-2-502 9909
4
September 2002