Least-Cost Policy Strategies For CO2-Reduction In Passenger Car Transport: Lessons From Europe For Emerging Countries

Emerging countries currently have the highest growth rates in transport energy consumption and straightforward greenhouse gas emissions. In recent years many policy approaches in EU countries have been implemented to cope with problems in transport sector. The core objective of this paper is to derive lessons learned from different EU policies for road passenger transport which can also be implemented in emerging countries. Of high relevance in this context are especially the costs of measures to reduce GHG emissions from road passenger transport and how to derive a corresponding least-cost-portfolio of measures. The major conclusions and recommendation for emerging countries based on analysis of European policies for road passenger transport are: (i) Improving energy efficiency is a very important measure but implemented alone it does not necessarily lead to an equivalent energy and CO2 saving effect because rebound effect people purchase larger cars and drive more; (ii) The major recommendation is that standards have to be accompanied with fuel taxes to reduce km driven as well as with size-dependent registration taxes to limit the size of cars.