Break Oil Dependence
We want the transport sector to reduce its reliance on fossil fuels.
We need to prepare for a post-oil Scotland, not one increasingly dependent on foreign supplies of oil.
The oil strike at the Grangemouth oil refinery in April 2008, and the oil price spike of summer 2008, demonstrated just how exposed the Scottish transport sector is to security of oil supplies.
But people need to get used to petrol becoming more expensive: fossil fuels are scarce and finite, and as they get used up their price is certain to rise. In the context of soaring rates of demand from China and India, and with global oil supplies likely to reach their maximum at some point this decade, it should be no surprise to see British fuel prices go up. The challenge is to reduce dependence on fossil fuels as soon as possible.
The world is now approaching a critical point when global oil production reaches a maximum - and then begins to decline for evermore. That, put simply, is the phenomenon of ‘Peak Oil’. Peak Oil is now predicted by a growing number of analysts to occur between now and 2015; even the most optimistic predict Peak Oil to fall some time within the next 20 years. Global oil production matched discovery in the mid 1980s, and the world is now using four times more oil than is being discovered.
Adapting to the decline in oil supply will inevitably involve major changes in our transport and lifestyles. We don’t have to suffer, but it’s vital for all of us to be well informed about what we face, and what will be required to adapt our transport system to the new world of oil decline.
The move to sustainable transport will require us to:
- Mount a widespread public information campaign so that people understand the issues around oil depletion and the need for action. Only a few years ago, the threats from climate change had very low public consciousness – we now need to do the same for the challenge of Peak Oil.
- Put in place contingency planning for which sectors of the transport sector should have priority in the event of fuel scarcity (e.g. emergency services, food supply, public utilities, and public transport).
- Make ‘localisation’ the centre of our land use planning policies – promote community-supported agriculture; protect local schools, shops and post offices; and preventing the construction of out-of-town shopping centres, business parks and education campuses.
- Re-prioritise transport investment. Scrap proposals for traffic-generating new roads (in particular, proposals for the Aberdeen western bypass and a Second Forth Road Bridge). Instead: invest in the active travel modes to bring us up to continental European levels of walking and cycling; invest in Smarter Choices – a range of small-scale, low-cost interventions (e.g. school and workplace travel plans, car clubs, conferencing technology); and invest in the forms of motorised transport that needs less, or no, oil input – e.g. hybrid buses, trams, electrified railways, and the movement of freight by rail or water.
- Establish Scotland as a centre of excellence in sustainable technology for public transport.