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The EU has announced a comprehensive new transport plan aimed at reducing carbon emissions over the next three decades and focusing on mer tire technologies such as drones and hydrogen aircraft.
The European Commission, the EU’s executive arm, unveiled its “sustainable and smart mobility strategy” on Wednesday.
According to the commission, its strategy is centered around making Europe’s transport system “sustainable, smart and resilient”. The EU’s desire to reduce transport-related greenhouse gas emissions by 90% by the year 2050 is seen as crucial.
By 2030, strategy goals include: at least 30 million zero-emission cars on the road; “Market-ready” zero-emission marine vessels; And large-scale deployment of automated mobility. Other goals for the next decade include the development of more cycling infrastructure.
By the year 2035, it wants to have a “zero-emission large aircraft” market ready. The commission further states that by the middle of this century “almost all cars, vans, buses as well as new heavy-duty vehicles will have zero-emissions”, while rail-freight traffic will have doubled.
“Through the implementation of this strategy, we will build a more efficient and resilient transportation system that is firmly on track to reduce emissions in line with our European Green Deal targets,” Transport Commissioner Edina Valen said in a statement. Wednesday.
The European Green Deal refers to the important plan of the European Commission to keep the weather neutral for the European Union by 2050.
Among other things, the strategy released on Wednesday focuses on emerging innovation and technology.
The EU, it says, “favorable conditions will be put in place for the development of new technologies and services and all the necessary legal tools for their recognition.”
“We can expect the emergence and widespread use of drones for commercial applications, autonomous vehicles, hyperloops, hydrogen aircraft, electric personal air vehicles, electric waterborne transport and clean urban logistics in the near future.”
Challenges and criticisms
While European officials were keen to execute the strategy and emphasize the potential implications of its goals, some environmental organizations presented a different point of view.
In a statement reacting to the plans, Greenpeace’s European unit said the commission’s proposal “did not set a reduction target for air travel, nor did it indicate the number of privately owned cars.”
“While it indicates that by 2030 the ‘mass travel’ within the EU of less than 500 km (such as by air, rail and bus) will remain carbon neutral, it will fall short of binding measures, such as the short ones there. Restrictions on long-haul flights. “There is a greener option like railways,” the group added. “Even failing to set a deadline for the sale of new cars with internal combustion engines.”
Elsewhere, the European Cyclists Federation, Cycling Industries Europe, and the Confederation of European Cycling Industry described the strategy’s “positive statements on cycling” as a “cautious welcome.”
“More work is needed to identify how a more ambitious change can be developed in the commission’s action plans,” he said.
The associations lamented that the strategy “has not yet set specific targets for cycling as a mode of transport in future transportation systems, nor does it include specific, explicit measures to increase cycle uptake in its action plan.”
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