CAN draft submission on Climate Change consultation paper: 
December 2001

CAN only has a mandate to comment on transport related matters with regard to the Climate Change consultation paper.

CAN believes that NZ should ratify the Kyoto protocol as soon as possible, though it should take part in the response to climate change whether the protocol comes into force or not. We believe that the response must have strong regulatory backing otherwise there is no point in doing it, and we believe that such measures should be implemented immediately.

We realise that many people will say that cycling is a peanut-sized response when compared to the problem of global warming. We would like to make two points in relation to that:

Journeys to work by bike occupy about the same percentage as journeys to work by public transport (around 2%) nationally. CAN supports investment being made in public transport, but we believe that a similar commitment should be made to investing in cycling.

Secondly, the NZ Household Travel Survey recently showed that around one third of car journeys are less than 3km long, and two thirds are less than 6km. Those short journeys, which don't even give time for the car's engine to warm up properly, are probably the most polluting of all. The potential for shifting many of those journeys to cycling is very high, but it will not happen unless cycling is supported by infrastructure and policy changes.

CAN believes NZ's response needs to be based on changing the expectations and behaviours of individuals, and that there must be a wide range of measures adopted, not just the big obvious ones. The govt should be looking for a culture change in society, so the small effects are as important to deal with as the large ones. Given that behaviour changes are very slow to show an effect, measures must be adopted immediately in order for them to have the chance of having an impact in the first commitment period (2008-2012).

We do not believe that the market model is an effective tool for changing behaviours in transport, since the signals (e.g. petrol price) are not direct enough. The government must set a regulatory environment which supports use of low energy modes (and that includes using engineering, enforcement, encouragement and education measures).

We, as citizens of NZ, have a moral obligation to work with the rest of the world to reverse the effects of human intervention in the earth's climate. CAN believes that NZ should not respond by buying its way out of the situation through trading in sink credits; and we should act now to reduce our production of greenhouse gases.

CAN believes that that policies in response to climate change should not just be at least economic cost to NZ� - it should also be at least social and environmental cost. If the right measures are used, the response should actually benefit NZ: reducing car dependence by providing viable alternatives (e.g. cycling, walking and public transport) would reduce the economic burden of importing fuel, improve the overall health of the population by encouraging more active forms of transport, reduce the severance effects from road-building, and lessen the impact of transport systems on the environment.

We also believe that it is crucial that all of govt policy should be aligned to the achievement of climate change goals. Some examples of the policies which should be working towards those goals are:

Energy Efficiency Strategy - the primary goal in transport should be to reduce use of private motor vehicles, the secondary goal to bring in alternative fuel cars. Alternative fuel cars still impose a risk on more vulnerable road users, and discourage people from walking & cycling. The use of energy efficient modes should also be specified in the government, industry & buildings programmes in the Energy Efficiency strategy.

Road Safety - the Road Safety Strategy should aim for the creation of safety by encouraging low-impact modes and addressing the imposition of risk by dominant modes, otherwise more vulnerable modes are effectively excluded from the system. If people perceive cycling and walking to be risky activities they are less likely to choose those modes for travel, and less likely to allow their children to choose those ways of travel. The gazetting of 30 & 40 km/hr speed limits, for example, which seems to have been lost in MoT bureaucracy since 1997, could reduce the number of parents who drive their children 200 metres to school because of safety concerns.

Health - the Health Strategy should have a stronger financial emphasis on preventive health. Public health agencies hould be able to fund encouragement programmes for active transport, such as Safe Routes To School schemes, and cycle-friendly employer schemes.

Transport - funding systems should require all roading projects to include provision (to an adequate standard) for cyclists. Allowing roads to be built with no hard shoulder, or without allowing for difficulties experienced by cyclists while moving through intersections, for example, has the effect of excluding cyclists from those parts of the transport system. Public transport funding should require access for cyclists, e.g. by allowing bikes on trains or racks on buses.

Tourism - cycle tourism should be marketed to NZers as well as overseas visitors, but the roading infrastructure (e.g. consistent hard shoulders, correcting narrow bridges) and road user behaviour changes need to be in place first. Feedback we have had from overseas cycle tourists suggests that NZ drivers are not well known for their care or politeness on open roads.

Emissions Control - the problem of emissions from congestion vs those from 'smoothed' traffic flows should be analysed in terms of their long-term effects on transport mode use. Anything which encourages motor vehicle use or discourages low impact mode use should be avoided. While in the short term it may seem that emissions will be reduced by not having cars idling for so long, the longer term effect of easing traffic flows is going to be to give drivers an incentive to drive, and the increase in motor vehicle traffic makes the roading environment even worse for more vulnerable modes.