In order to combat climate change and ensure mobility for increasing populations, individuals need to cut unnecessary journeys, global transport policy-makers were told in Leipzig Thursday, according to dpa. The International Transport Forum, a global policy think-tank led by the OECD, is meeting for its annual summit until May 28. "Just talking about low emission vehicles is not enough. We have to think about how to avoid unnecessary transport," German President Horst Koehler, a former head of the International Monetary Fund, said in a keynote address. Policymakers are grappling with how to price in the cost of meeting climate change obligations - in the case of Europe, cutting carbon dioxide emissions by 20 per cent by 2020 - with public demand for ever cheaper and ever more convenient transport. Koehler hit out at what he called a culture of wasteful travel encouraged by budget airlines. "How important is it for Berliners, for example, to travel to Oslo a thousand kilometres away for less than the price of a necktie?" he asked. "Some transport should be avoided all together ... otherwise we will not be able to avoid more and more emissions from transport." German Transport Minister Peter Ramsauer said that in the past 30 years, very little progress had been made in pricing the so-called externalities in transport - the environmental damage for which neither consumers nor producers pay. But "in view of a growing volume of traffic, the finiteness of fossil fuels, and the probs connected to global warming, we will have to find a different way," Ramsauer said. Transport accounts for around a quarter of global carbon dioxide emissions, according to some measures. The forum, in which policymakers from some 50 countries are represented, is also set to discuss how to implement ambitious targets for electric vehicles, how to foster innovation in the sector, and how to raise financing for research and development.
