Fuel Tax Levels Necessary to Achieve the Agreed Reduction Targets of CO2 Emissions. The Case of Madrid
Sustainable urban areas are widely considered a promising target for every city. Different policies are being designed in order to tackle the multifaceted range of transport-related problems in urban agglomerations and therefore contribute significantly t
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Introduction Sustainable urban areas are widely considered a promising target for every city. Different policies are being designed in order to tackle the multifaceted range of transport-related problems in urban agglomerations and therefore contribute significantly to the overall quality of life in cities. The recently published communication “Green Paper - Towards a new culture for urban mobility” [1], clearly says that “European towns and cities are all different, but they face similar challenges and are trying to find common solutions”: for making our cities sustainable. This is not a minor task. Over 60% of the population lives in urban areas and 85% of the EU’s gross domestic product is created in urban areas [1, 2]. All around Europe, increased traffic, both in the city centre and the metropolitan area is a common phenomenon. Externalities measured in terms of delays, pollution, stress, inequities, etc.; drive our cities into a spiral of degradation. On the other hand, climate change is recognized as an international problem where all are involved. The increase in traffic and the ‘stop-go’ nature of driving in urban areas implies that cities are becoming a major and growing source of CO2 emissions. Lot of hope has been pinned on technical progress. However, this can be insufficient due to the uncertainty over when new reliable fuel or vehicles technologies will be introduced. For that reason, the focus is more and more shifting to market-driven instruments, like taxation measures, which, apart from creating incentives [3, 4] to develop and use low-emission technologies, can also reduce unsustainable mobility demand [1].
D. de la Hoz and L.A. Guzmán Centro de Investigación del Transporte, Universidad Politécnica de, Madrid, Spain P. Pfaffenbichler Institut für Verkehrsplanung und Verkehrstechnik, TU, Wein S. Shepherd Institute for Transport Studies, University of Leeds, Leeds, UK S. Rauch et al. (eds.), Highway and Urban Environment, Alliance for Global Sustainability Bookseries 17, DOI 10.1007/978-90-481-3043-6_40, © Springer Science+Business Media B.V. 2010
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Fuel taxes were not initially designed for environmental purposes, but their consequences are certainly environmental. The stated motives for fuel taxes vary considerably from one place to another [5]. Nowadays, fuel taxes could play a crucial role to motivate a change, but still it is difficult to implement as policies are shaped by economic interest, and the growing dependence of cars among the population makes it unpopular [6]. There are several economical studies based on the topic of searching for the optimal carbon-tax system to achieve some certain abatement objectives and sustain the macroeconomic welfare [7–10]. Others have propound an integrated economy-climate model under a system dynamics (SD) approach [11, 12]. In this study fuel taxes will be evaluated as an important instrument for the environment and urban sustainability. Using a system dynamic approach for urban mobility, this study shows how the energy t
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