Taxis in London – 196,000 tonnes of carbon per annum

This week we visited the European Future Energy Forum at ExCeL. There were some great presentations about e-mobility and smarter cities from Siemens, but perhaps the most interesting presentation was given by the CEO of the European Climate Foundation, Jules Kortenhorst in a panel discussion on Promoting the Development of Sustainable Fuels for Transport. One of their findings was that a 50% reduction in carbon by 2050 is only possible with zero-carbon road transport. It was good to hear someone highlight this as I often get the view that the only discussion about climate change at the moment is around energy.

Tesla at EFEF

In the Eco Transport showcase, there were two very cool Tesla vehicles so thought I should pop a picture in from my trusty iPhone!

But perhaps the most valuable set of statistics were from some posters made by Transport for London. The key one (below) showed that transport in London is responsible for 9.8 million tonnes of carbon each year, or 22% of the total carbon emissions for London. Almost half of that (4.5 million tonnes) comes from cars and motorcycles and the good old taxi industry is responsible for 196,000 tonnes. Given the statistics from the Department for Transport about occupancy rates in cars and our own knowledge of taxi occupancy rates, it is not too difficult to see that if vehicles were used in more efficient ways, you could save over a million tonnes of carbon a year, just in London.

TfL Statistics