Scenarios for carbon-neutral transport: Which actions achieve the goal?

The transport sector’s contribution to achieving the climate targets is still unsatisfactory. In contrast to other sectors such as energy and buildings, CO₂ emissions have not fallen in comparison to 1990, the baseline year – apart from the decrease caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. There are immense challenges if the greenhouse gas emissions from transport are indeed to fall by approximately 48 per cent of 1990 levels to 85 million tonnes of CO₂ equivalent by 2030, in line with the German government’s revised Climate Change Act. By 2045, the transport sector must be carbon-neutral.

The magnitude of the task demands a strategic approach. With the aid of scenarios, it is possible to demonstrate which measures and instruments can produce real contributions to climate change mitigation and what the impact of combining different instruments will be.