The climate crisis urges progress towards more sustainable mobility, and the railway is proposed as an optimal option both for the low emissions it generates and for its capacity in transporting people and goods. In this sense, a clear commitment to the train is required, as experts have defended at the conference Railway, cities and environment.
Organized by The New Barcelona Post with the support of Renfe and the Catalunya Europa Foundation, the conference addressed sustainability in a round table with the spokesperson for the Public Transport Platform (PTP), Daniel Pi; the researcher from the Institute of Marine Sciences (ICM-CSIC) Jordi Solé; the doctor in Biological Sciences Mercè Rius, formerly general director of Environmental Quality and Climate Change of the Generalitat and director of the Catalan Energy Institute (ICAEN), and the popularizer José Luís Gallego.
Rius has positioned the railway as a great ally in combating climate change. "But it has some disadvantages, such as requiring a lot of investment." In this sense, she has argued that, "for the railway to end up being the tool we need against climate change and to improve air quality and congestion, what we need are investments." The doctor in Biological Sciences said this in reference to passenger transport, but also freight. So much so that she has proposed exploring the possibility of distributing goods within cities and during off-peak hours via subways and trams, all to remove trucks from roads and redirect their cargo towards rail transport.
"We have made progress in areas such as waste and water, but not in sustainable mobility"Just as the railway is an ally in fighting climate change, climate change represents for the railway "not an opportunity, but a risk," according to Rius, who warned that the weather can affect and damage railway infrastructures and their service.Floods, wind, drastic temperature changes or constant heat represent a risk, as Solé has highlighted. The researcher has predicted that "extreme events will be increasingly frequent," and has opted for building infrastructures and a resilient network in the face of scenarios that will be environmentally worse than current ones.
However, he believes that "we are still in a stage of denial: we still don't believe the importance of the challenge we have ahead." In fact, the researcher has stressed that emissions are not the problem or the objective, but are only an indicator: "We not only have to focus on reducing emissions, but the issue is much more complex, and the train and transport in general is fundamental in that."
The experts have agreed that this diagnosis is clear and is shared by a large part of institutions, but that progress in this direction is not fast enough. "Why are we not moving towards mobility more based on the train?" Daniel Pi asked. The PTP spokesperson pointed to reasons such as funding, and also focused on the perception from which some segments of the population view the train: "Sometimes public transport seems to be the transport of poor people, when it should be the transport of intelligent people."
Gallego has also focused on this delay in moving towards more environmentally friendly modes of transport. "We have made progress in areas such as waste and water, but not in sustainable mobility." The indicators have not only remained constant in recent years, but "everything has been steps backward." And all in a context in which "mobility represents 25% of greenhouse gas emissions, responsible for us experiencing heat in mid-October." In this regard, he has launched a clear demand: "More transversal environmental policies are required that reach areas such as transport," to promote the railway as a more sustainable alternative.