A recent report released by the European Environmental Agency (EEA) has found that greenhouse emissions from transport vehicles remain a key obstacle to the European Union (EU) reaching its Kyoto climate change targets.

Entitled "Transport and the Environment: on the way to a new common transport policy," the report aims at isolating the main challenges to reducing the negative environmental impact of the sector, while at the same time making suggestions to improve the sector's environmental performance. The report covers all EEA members, which include the 27 EU Members and EU candidate Turkey, as well as Iceland, Liechtenstein, Norway and Switzerland.

According to the report, while greenhouse gas emissions (GGE) decreased in most sectors in the EU15 between 1990 and 2004, they increased by 26% in the national transport sector. Road transport is by far the biggest polluter, emitting 93% of the greenhouse gases put out by the transport sector, which itself accounts for 22% of total EU 15 emissions.

Some 270-290 Million Euros in known annual subsidies are being handed down to the transport sector in EEA countries, said the report, although it cautioned that the total value of transport subsides were unknown.

These subsidies are often criticized for externalizing some of the costs of transportation, meaning that users do not have to pay the full costs, which results in the overuse of transportation.

The report found it difficult to assess the overall environmental impact of transport subsidies, noting that subsidies to the sector could have both negative and positive consequences. For instance, subsidies to railways were sited as being able to shift traffic away from the more environmentally harmful roads, but at the same time could increase overall traffic and therefore emissions.

Having said that, the report does conclude that reducing transport subsidies is one option available for achieving a major EEA goal of internalizing the external costs of transportation. Users would face higher prices which would better reflect the true costs of transportation and which would presumably lower traffic and greenhouse emissions.

The EEA is set to release a report exclusively on the question of transport subsidies this spring. The EEA's report is available at:
http://reports.eea.europa.eu/eea_report_2007_1/en/eea_report_1_2007.pdf