the Myth or Power of Decoupling for Sustainable Transport? Comment on Petri Tapio s talk on decoupling in the transport sector, at 2nd TEMPO Conference, Oslo January 31st 2011
overview the decoupling concept relevance for TEMPO task 5 on institutional conditions for policy change applicability at a cross-city meso-level policy implications
decoupling multiple meanings: environmental: decoupling of environmental stress from societal progress breaking the link between "environmental bads" and "economic goods (OECD 2001) a myth (Jackson 2009)? i.e. questioning the qualities of economic growth an operationalisation of sustainability : dissolving the trade-offs between environment versus welfare and economy (intra)institutional: decoupling of policy from practice - in order to maintain external legitimacy (Meyer & Rowan 1977; Westphal & Zajac 2001) i.e. explaining symbolic politics ; the implementation deficits - the unintended consequences of plans and policies; the janus face of politics
TEMPO task 5: addressing collective action (organised behaviour) for sustainable transport, the societal and political institutions enabling or constraining policy implementation i.e. identifying the policies and institutions enabling environmental decoupling achieving environmental decoupling requires overcoming the barriers of intraorganisational decoupling )
institutional policy analysis: comparisons across institutional entities - particular institutional configurations (nations, states, regions, cities) - that tend to be rather stable traditional forward mapping: from policy formulation and design to implementation and impacts and backward mapping (Elmore 1980) from impacts and implementation to policy goals
Decoupling means questioning taken-for-granted relationships Instruments to decouple Economy & Transport Instruments to decouple Economy & Transport Instruments to decouple Transport & Environment ECONOMIC ACTIVITY TRANSPORT ACTIVITY ENVIRONMENTAL LOAD INDICATORS eg. GDP TARGETED LINKAGES TARGETED LINKAGES INDICATORS eg. Vehicle km by mode INDICATORS eg. total emissions TIGHT, M.R. et al 2004.
Less Car Dependency with higher Income in the larger Norway Cities car use time / total travel time suburban (OBTS) (Oslo-Bergen- Trondheim-Stavanger) Household Income
Urban Structure and Car Dependency Oslo Education and Car Dependency Oslo low % daily travel time share in car high Tromsø Bergen Trondheim Kristiansand Bodø Asker Stavanger Drammen Tønsberg Skedsmo Karmøy Arendal Bærum Porsgrunn Fredrikstad Sandnes Sandefjord Larvik Skien Sarpsborg Ålesund % daily travel time share in car low high Tromsø Bergen Trondheim Kristiansand Bodø Drammen Stavanger Skedsmo Tønsberg Karmøy Arendal Porsgrunn Sandefjord Fredrikstad Sandnes Sarpsborg Larvik Skien Ålesund Asker Bærum Haugesund centre zones/dense areas Y=245+0.805*X (r=0.642) Haugesund Y=197+0.532*X (r=0.695) LOG (high education share)
Higher Income lower CO2 road emissions in Norwegian cities Personal Income vs. CO2-road/cap Changes in Income vs. CO2 (road) most most least least
Population growth vs. Growth in CO2 emissions from road least no (linear) relation between population growth and change of emissions - and not an inverted, but a lying U (highest and lowest emission increase with high population growht) most 2nd TEMPO Conference
possible explanations potential drivers of decoupling: politico-institutional: strong institutions in place, public authorities capable of enforcing environmental regulations identifying and internalising environmental externalities mobilizing and ensuring legitimacy from the population for a low-carbon society recognizing that policy change is hardly driven by a single factor, but of several interacting factors of both technological, institutional and behavioural/sociocultural drivers, i.e. new modes of interactive governance and combined policy instruments socio-cultural: car use satiation - car use frustration in the cities? (congestion, parking, lack of space, costs, air quality, ) post-materialistic values/sustainable, healthy lifestyles, a kind of simple living trends? increased user involvement in collective solutions, made easier by new communication and organisational innovations in short: in search of innovative collective solutions ->
thanks for your attention!