In this Policy Brief, Dr Muhammad Shafique highlights how the full lifecycle of road vehicles and their fuel can contribute carbon emissions, and recommends a holistic approach to reduce emissions related to road transport.
The UK will need to accelerate the infrastructure rollout for electric charging if it is to keep pace with the requirements associated with the zero emission vehicle (ZEV) mandate. Furthermore, as this mandate only focuses only on tailpipe emissions, it does not address the emissions associated with vehicle production and disposal and fuel production and distribution.
Policy Brief Recommendations:
- Introduce binding nationwide spatial targets for EV charging rollout.
- Accelerate hydrogen corridor development through coordinated national infrastructure planning.
- Introduce mandatory, standardised lifecycle carbon accounting for all vehicle types and components to improve supply-chain transparency and enable comparable emissions assessment across each vehicle.
- Adopt a whole-system transport decarbonisation framework based on full lifecycle emissions assessment, moving beyond the current focus on tailpipe emissions alone.
See the full policy brief here