None of the main parties in the general election has a coherent plan for reducing greenhouse gas emissions from transport, the biggest source of carbon in the UK, according to Friends of the Earth.

The Conservative manifesto highlights the need to repair potholes, but the nearly £30bn pledge to be spent on roads is likely to add to greenhouse gases at a time when they need to be reduced drastically.

Labour and the Liberal Democrats have pledges to invest in rail and other public transport, with Labour doing so through nationalising the railways, but they also fall short.

Transport has become the biggest source of UK emissions and is on the increase, rising by 3% a year, while carbon from energy generation has fallen. The Department for Transport has been criticised for “going rogue” by planning for big increases in road transport while neglecting public transport and the need to invest for a low-carbon future.

Mike Childs, the head of science at Friends of the Earth, said: “While the Conservatives have warm words on buses and trams, they do not spell out spending commitments, and the £350m they promise for cycling is a fraction of what’s needed. Meanwhile, their promise to spend £28.8bn on roads will exacerbate the climate emergency.”

However, despite much more focus on the climate emergency in their manifestos, Labour and the Lib Dems also failed to grasp the opportunities needed, he said. “Labour and the Lib Dems are both much stronger on transport but neither have faced up to the fact that we need to stop spending on roads and make motoring more expensive. Transport is the largest source of carbon emissions and growing – if we are to take the climate emergency seriously, we need carrots and sticks.”

A report by Transport for Quality of Life, Friends of the Earthand Greenpeace, prepared before all details of the main parties’ policies were available, has found that the UK could drastically reduce emissions from transport through investment in infrastructure, regulation on emissions from vehicles and encouraging people out of their cars.

They found that government departments responsible for all other sectors of the economy, from energy and waste to agriculture and housing, had cut greenhouse gas emissions – but the DfT had presided over a rise in emissions.

“A policy prescription for slow and steady carbon reduction that might have been sufficient 25 years ago is no longer fit for purpose,” the authors said. “Because we have left it so late to tackle carbon from transport, we now have to take urgent action.”

Under the UK’s current target of reaching net-zero emissions by 2050 – a target that would be brought forward by the Lib Dems, Labour and the Green party – the rising emissions from transport would have to be brought under control swiftly. The main parties have differing aims on when to ban the sale of combustion engines, and this will be crucial, according to the report.

Theresa May’s government reversed some of the incentives for buying electric cars, resulting in a steep fall in sales.

The NGOs are calling for a radical rethink of public transport that would require it to be universal, comprehensive, affordable – or free, in the case of local travel – and low-carbon.

They point to examples in other countries where public transport systems are coordinated so that trains, trams and buses are under a single authority. Adopting a similar approach in regions of the UK would cut car mileage by about 10%, the report predicts.

The potential for cycliing would be much larger if infrastructure was improved, according to the report. The authors cite a recent study suggesting more than a quarter of commuters in the West Midlands would cycle to work if e-bikes were widely available and the routes more cycle-friendly.

The most obvious ways of funding new low-carbon infrastructure are to reallocate existing road transport funding, and to put levies on driving on motorways and some built-up areas and on road haulage. However, the report suggests that methods common in other countries could also be used: for instance, a levy paid by employers to pay for public transport and a small tourist or lodging tax for overnight visitors, common in other European countries, to go towards local public transport.

Public expenditure on walking, cycling and local public transport in the UK is about £2.3bn a year. But if all these measures were taken, the expenditure could be raised to £40bn a year, making possible the radical changes needed to the transport system to allow for a low-carbon future, the report found.

“The next government should bring in pay-per-mile for driving in towns, cities and on motorways, balanced by free local public transport,” said Lynn Sloman, director of Transport for Quality of Life. “It should regulate all public transport, as in London, and as Manchester is considering, so that every town and city can have a comprehensive public transport service.

“There must be a massive increase in funding for bus services, tram lines and cycleways, but much of that can be paid for by cancelling the last government’s £29bn climate-destroying roads programme. The climate emergency should be the top priority of the next transport secretary, and every penny of public money must be used to cut traffic and enable everyone to live decently without having to own or drive a car.”

• This article was amended on 3 December 2019 to make it clear that the campaigning group who commented on the party manifestos was Friends of the Earth.



