Partners needed to meet our transport challenges
PROTECTING the environment and creating more sustainable lives, communities and economies are some of the most fundamental challenges facing the planet in the 21st century. It’s a problem that affects Wales as much as the island nations of Oceania and mega cities like Tokyo and New York.
As the debate on the M4 Relief Road comes to a head in the next few months, it is worth reminding ourselves that autonomous, electrical vehicles require a modern, reliable and functioning motorway network – as well as a ubiquitous 5G signal.
Wales must not face a choice between either modern public transport or a functioning motorway network. A modern globalised economy, like Wales, must have both. The challenge is how we achieve that goal.
The answer is not to abandon one or the other. We need both public transport and a modern road network and, with the right approach, both are possible.
So there is a whole host of things we can do to lessen our collective impact on the environment, and now, one of them is set to become even easier. Not many of us may own a zero-emission car at the moment, but they are set to take over the roads in decades to come – all the more so following the Prime Minister’s announcement this week of over £100 million for research and development into zero-emission technology.
There are three key ways we can reach the UK’s goal of a zero-emission future. Firstly, by pushing further on free trade and combatting protectionism.
Right now, countries around the world are setting their zero-emission targets and making plans to meet them. But let’s be frank. If we are to meet those targets, we shall do so together or not at all. No one country can succeed alone.
And that means we must keep trade strong. There’s a reason the automotive industry in Wales is so important. Be you in Bridgend with Ford, Deeside with Toyota or St Athan with Aston Martin, the automotive industry is international by its nature.
It’s because launching a car is expensive, especially a car that uses new technology, so it requires a global marketplace. That’s why protectionism is dangerous. Not just for business, not just for consumers, but for our environment. It’s the wrong answer, to the wrong question, at the wrong moment.
There’s another international opportunity, too. In the race to create new products, countries need to agree common standards. It will take consultation and collaboration, but if emissions are a global problem then we need global solutions.
Secondly, we need to innovate more. The transition to zero-emissions presents the greatest set of technical challenges since the space race. And like the space race, they’re not challenges business or governments in Wales or Westminster can solve alone. There’s a vital third partner - our universities, where so much of the technology will first take shape.
In Europe, universities and businesses have already built links across the continent.
The European Framework Programmes have been great at connecting science and industry, and they will be all the stronger with the UK involved after Brexit. But let’s now extend those partnerships beyond Europe – to the US, China, India, Japan and other countries.
And lastly, the transition to zeroemissions is not just about ensuring we build the vehicles – that’s only half the story. The other half is about ensuring demand, encouraging people to see that their next car must be a zero-emission car and giving them the confidence to move away from a technology that has defined our lives for a century.
If people are worried about the car’s driving range, the infrastructure, the cost of installing chargers at home, battery longevity or a host of other possible concerns, then they just won’t make the switch. They’ll stick with what they know.
And it’s here that government support goes a long way – through making vehicles affordable, easing consumers’ range anxiety and joining forces with business to invest in charge-points across our road networks.
And governments can help design the zero-emission vehicle eco-system that makes the low-emission choice the easy choice and, ultimately, the only choice. It’s already started in cities like New York and San Francisco. With their carpooling lanes, open to zero-emission vehicles. Or in Shenzhen, with their allelectric bus fleet.
We want business to be bold in providing the supply. But governments must be bold in fuelling demand, too.
It’s a technological change, but also a cultural change. And business can’t do that alone.
■ Ian Price is director of CBI Wales.