What would happen without new measures to cut freight emissions?
T&E, using its new European Union Transport Roadmap Model (EUTRM) tool, has calculated how greenhouse gas emissions from land freight transport would evolve up to 2050 if no new measures are introduced to reduce its emissions, i.e. under a business-as-usual scenario. Trucks represent less than 5% of all vehicles on Europe’s roads today but are responsible for around 26% of all road transport CO2 emissions.
Interested in this kind of news?
Receive them directly in your inbox. Delivered once a week.
The graph above shows that unless measures are taken, emissions from land freight would increase by 45%, trucks being responsible for almost all of that increase, especially large trucks. Transport is already Europe’s largest climate problem, and freight is the most difficult sector to decarbonise within land transport.
Most of the growth in emissions from trucks comes from increased freight transport demand (which is still coupled to economic growth) and a very minor improvement in heavy goods vehicle efficiency.
However, in order to reach the goals of the Paris agreement, transport needs to reach zero emissions by 2050, including land freight. T&E has done an in-house study on how that could be done, in order to spark debate at EU level on the necessary measures to reach that challenging goal. From the graph above, it is clear that the EU needs a long-term decarbonisation strategy for land freight if it takes the Paris agreement seriously.
For more details, have a look at sections 1 and 2 of our new study.
Related Articles
View All
Are new electric entrants serious competition for European truckmakers?
European truckmakers face increasing competition as new players enter the heavy electric truck market offering performant products for cheaper.
Chinese and US truckmakers set to gain over a quarter of European electric truck market by 2030
T&E warns that maintaining ambition of the truck CO2 standards will be critical to EU manufacturers remaining market leaders
EU heavy-duty vehicle transition needs renewed political momentum
IRU and T&E are calling on European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen to launch a strategic dialogue on heavy-duty vehicle decarbonisation, as...