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Environmental and welfare gains via urban transport policy portfolios across 120 cities

Nature Sustainability volume 6, pages 1067–1076 (2023)Cite this article

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Abstract

City-level policies are increasingly recognized as key components of strategies to reduce transport greenhouse gas emissions. However, at a global scale, their total efficiencies, costs and practical feasibility remain unclear. Here we use a spatially explicit monocentric urban economic model, systematically calibrated on 120 cities worldwide, to analyse the impact of four representative policies aimed at mitigating transportation greenhouse gas emissions, also accounting for their economic welfare impacts and health co-benefits. Applying these policies in all cities, we find that total transportation greenhouse gas emissions can be reduced by 31% in 15 years, compared with the baseline scenario. However, the consequences of the same policies vary widely between cities, with specific effects depending on the policy considered, income level, population growth rate, spatial organization and existing public transport supply. Impacts on transport emissions span from high to almost zero, and consequences in terms of welfare can either be positive or negative. Applying welfare-increasing policy portfolios captures most of the emission reductions: overall, they reduce emissions by 22% in 15 years. Our results highlight that there is no one-size-fits-all policy. However, with context-specific strategies, large emission reductions can globally be achieved while improving welfare.

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Fig. 1: Impact of the four policies on annual transport emissions and average welfare in the 120 cities in 2035, compared with the BAU scenario.
Fig. 2: Decomposition of welfare variations between different drivers in the 120 cities.
Fig. 3: Effect of the four policies on urban transport emissions and on welfare (including direct and indirect financial cost of the policies and health co-benefits) in 2035, compared with the BAU scenario.

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Data availability

The data used in the study are from ref. 66 and are available at ref. 78. Complementary data have been used as inputs for the model: World Bank data on gasoline prices79; data on average car fuel consumption per country from the International Energy Agency69; data on the monetary cost of public transport80,81,82; data on income83,84,85; data on agricultural GDP and agricultural areas by country86; population growth scenarios75; and marginal costs of air pollution, noise and car accidents87. Complementary datasets have been used for calibrations’ validation: modal shares data from EPOMM (https://epomm.eu), CDP (https://data.cdp.net) and ref. 70; and emissions datasets from refs. 71,72,73.

Code availability

The analyses have been done using Python 3.9. Codes are available at https://github.com/CIRED/policy_portfolios.

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Acknowledgements

V.V. and C.L. gratefully acknowledge funding from the VITE (ANR-14CE22-0013) and DRAGON (ANR-14-ORAR-0005) ANR projects, as well as from the POLL-EXPO Ademe project. We thank C. Guivarch, T. Le Gallic, S. Hallegatte, P. Avner and A. Delahais, as well as the conference participants at FAERE for their comments and suggestions, and Q. Lepetit for his assistance with data collection. F.C. acknowledges funding from the Horizon Europe Research and Innovative Action Programme under Grant Agreement no. 101056810 (CircEUlar).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. CIRED, Ecole des Ponts, AgroParisTech, EHESS, CIRAD, CNRS, Université Paris-Saclay, Nogent-sur-Marne, France

    Charlotte Liotta & Vincent Viguié

  2. Mercator Research Institute on Global Commons and Climate Change, Berlin, Germany

    Charlotte Liotta & Felix Creutzig

  3. Technische Universität Berlin, Berlin, Germany

    Charlotte Liotta & Felix Creutzig

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The study was conceived by C.L., V.V. and F.C. Analysis was performed by C.L., in consultation with, and with inputs from, V.V. and F.C. All authors discussed the results and contributed to the writing of the paper.

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Correspondence to Charlotte Liotta.

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Liotta, C., Viguié, V. & Creutzig, F. Environmental and welfare gains via urban transport policy portfolios across 120 cities. Nat Sustain 6, 1067–1076 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41893-023-01138-0

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