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A new approach to modellig economic valuation of road transport emissions: development and application to the case of Lanzarote, Spain.

par Ramirez Sanchez, Pedro Pablo
Président du jury Hendrick, Patrick
Promoteur Ndiaye, Alassane Ballé
Co-Promoteur Martín-Cejas, Roberto Rendeiro
Publication Non publié, 2024-05-16

Thèse de doctorat

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Résumé :

Atmospheric pollution is one of the major problems in modern society, especially in urban areas where the air quality causes several problems in the health situations of citizens.With the exception of sulphur oxides, road transport is the stronger polluter in the transport sector. Considering that an important part of emissions occur in urban areas, it is evident because road transport emission is one of the most important challenges in modern societies.In these circumstances, public regulators have developed policy instruments for sustainable transport. The most important principle of environmental policies is the "polluter pays principle", which was first adopted in 1970 in Japan and nowadays, is the main argument forthe implementation of different environmental policies by the authorities.Nevertheless, the complexity of the emissions and the different aims considered by the regulation, global warming vs air quality, different pollutants involved, etc., has provoked perverse effects in some cases and “shift effect” in others. The most famous case in this regardwas the 2015 "Dieselgate" case involving Volkswagen.In Europe, on 14th of July, 2021, the European Commission has presented the “Fit for 55 package” where the EU1 is working on the revision of its climate, energy and transport-related legislation, in order to align current laws with the 2030 and 2050 ambitions. A number of new proposals are also included in the package. Nevertheless, it is important to remark that “Fit for 55 package” is a proposition from the European Commission to the European States. Then there are likely to be tough negotiations between the member states. The different points ofview in the European countries, has been showed in The COP2 26 UN Climate Change Conference, which took place from 31 October to 12 November 2021.It is important to consider that the complexities of road transport include passenger cars but also the freight transport where the substitution of combustion engines is even more complicated. On the one hand, it is an interesting remark that in the “Fit for 55 package” the bio-fuels are included, on the other hand, the regulation includes a review clause in 2026 and the possible need to revise the emission reduction targets in the light of progress made and also taking into account technological developments.Taking into account the different situation not only in Europe but also in the rest of the world, the EU population is less than 6% the of world population share, we can conclude that the replacement of combustion engines will be much slower than is believed.The present research focuses on the economic valuation of road transport emissions, to be applied as a tool for calculating emission taxes on fuel prices. Emissions have to be considered as a whole and not as individual pollutants, in order to avoid a "pendulum effect".The methodology developed in our research will calculate the price of emissions objectively on the basis of the abatement price of them, and not on the basis of the health effects they may have. This is to avoid distortions arising from the per capita income of different populations.Consequently, our methodology is focused on emissions and not on air quality because the same emissions may also produce different effects depending on geographical and environmental conditions. We therefore consider that emissions and air quality are two different perspectives of the same issue. They are complementary and not mutually exclusive.On the first step we quantified road transport emission using COPERT (COmputer Programme to calculate Emissions from Road Transport). On the second step, because electric power is the strongest alternative in land transport, we analysed and quantified the emission associated with electricity production in the selected scenario. From the electricity production abatement cost curves, estimated according to the cost of BAT (Best Available Techniques), the abatement cost of the selected pollutants has been calculated. Finally, by “mutatis mutandis” we obtained a "shadow price" for each selected pollutant in road transport.As a Likely scenario we have chosen to study the island of Lanzarote, in the Canary Islands, (a Spanish overseas region) to develop our research. The reasons for choosing this scenario lies in the advantages it presents. On the one hand, there is good data available and, on the other hand, since it is an island, it is a closed area, so we can use certain data to calibrate our model.In short, it will allow us to have a more robust model.The aim of this research is the development of a useful tool in the current transformation of road transport, promoting a technological change and avoiding possible perverse effects on environmental policies.