"Make it easy for me to go without a car," Andrea has her say on the transport emissions report

The Joint Committee on the Environment and Climate Action has been looking at how Ireland can reduce transport emissions by 51% by the end of the decade. Transport accounts for one-fifth of Ireland's total greenhouse gas emissions, and massive changes will be needed to halve that by 2030. The joint committee report recommends some radical changes. It recommends a policy to take road space away from cars in cities and towns, with more space for sustainable transport. It also says plans for large road projects need to be reviewed and potentially replaced with public transport projects instead. Proposals to bring in free public transport could be cheaper than fines Ireland gets for breaking its carbon targets. That is according to Brian Caulfield, associate professor in the School of Engineering at Trinity College Dublin. Prof Caulfield told Newstalk Breakfast in context, the changes are not that extreme. "It does seem very radical, the move they they're looking to make - but if you put it in context: we've eight and a half years to reduce our emissions in transport by 51%. "Last year, during the pandemic, they only fell by 17% when we were all working from home." Prof Caulfield said the idea of curtailing road building needs to be watched carefully. "I do think we need to update and keep the stock safe, and that people can safely travel on our roads. "But new roads - you'd have to question... why would we add to the problem in terms of carbon from transport". On the idea of free public transport, he said costing it would be "huge". "All of the public transport operators that operate in Ireland bring in an awful lot of money, so the costings would be huge. "I think we need to re-examine how we provide bus in our cities; Belfast have a fantastic example in the Glider up there, that looks like a Luas and is very cost-effective to run. "But the bigger question is what's the cost of not doing it? How much will the State be panelized if we miss our carbon targets - and the bigger, bigger question around climate change".