Recently, the European Commission issued the White Paper “Roadmap to a
Single European Transport Area –Towards a competitive and resource
efficient transport system”, outlining the strategy for transport in the
EUuntil 2050 and setting ten goals for a competitive and resource
efficient transport system.
The European Students' Forum - AEGEE welcomes the White Paper. As
constant promoters of mobility around the continent andactive
travellers, we would for sure benefit from interconnecting
passengerinformation systems and from having all major airport hubs
linked via a railwaynetwork. Being a pan-European network with members
in all parts of Europe, weare especially happy about the extension and
adaption of eastern and westernEuropean transport systems.
Most of all, we consider it of the utmostimportance and appreciate the
plan to decrease emissions by banning conventionally-fuelledcars from
big cities, shifting medium distance passenger and freight journeysrail
and waterborne transport andencouraging innovation for new fuel types
and new engines.
However, we believe the time frame too wide.
Manos Valasis, President of AEGEE-Europe, said: “Even if the aims of the
white paper are reached, that will happen in 2050. In 2050, all people
considered young at the moment will be at the sunset of their life, or
even after that. By that time, in the best case scenario, the emissions
will have been reduced by 40%. Not the pollution, the emissions. And
this is certainly not the world we want our children and grandchildren
to inherit from us.”
The International Energy Agency calculates that we have reached the Peak
Oil and from now on, prices of petrol derivates will increasefurther and
further. We should therefore take measures to decrease the
Europeaneconomy dependence on all carbon-based energy as soon as possible.
Alternative fuelled cars are already available, andwaiting for
encouraging policies to become more popular. The average life span of
cars in Europe isaround 10-12 years, so brave decisions now can have a
great impact. There is noneed to wait until 2050 to ban polluting cars
from urban centres.
Already this March, 42,2% of all energy consumed in Spain was from
renewable sources, according to Red Eléctrica de España1. "The
solarindustry skyrocketed last year with around 7,400 MW of solar
capacities beinginstalled in 2010. This means the new solar capacity
installed in 2010 wasalmost twice as high as that of 2009", says
Matthias Kurth, President of Bundesnetzagentur. However, “The actual
expansion in 2010 is way belowthe predicted increase of 9,500 MW.”
states the same announcement. We can also see in the above two examples
that on theone hand, there is huge room for improvement and on the other
hand, both strongand weak economies are able to support such actions.
Therefore,the European Students' Forum - AEGEE calls the European
Commission not to "prepare appropriate legislative proposals in the next
decade with key initiatives to beput forward", but to take action now
that will allow us toachieve the goals by 2020 instead of 2050.
It is already late for consultations. It is time to take immediate action.
Let's pass the planet to the future generations at least at the same
status in which we received it.
1 http://www.ree.es/ingles/sala_prensa/web/notas_detalle.aspx?id_nota=180
2
http://www.bundesnetzagentur.de/cln_1912/SharedDocs/Pressemitteilungen/EN/2011/110321NewPVplantsEEGStatisticalReport2009.html?nn=48242
You can find the relevant white paper here:
http://ec.europa.eu/transport/strategies/2011_white_paper_en.htm
For more information, contact:
Manos Valasis
President
AEGEE-Europe / European Students' Forum
Mail: [log in to unmask]
Office: +32 2 246 0327
Mobile: +32 4 8672 3667
Fax: +32 2 246 0329
AEGEE-Europe
Rue Nestor de Tière 15
1030 Brussels / Belgium
www.aegee.org
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