Commission staff working document
: OVERVIEW OF THE EU TRANSPORT SECTOR
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- 4.2: DECARBONISATION AND GREEN JOBS
4.1: OVERVIEW OF THE EU TRANSPORT SECTORIn 2009, the transport sector directly employed 10.1 million people,178 which accounted for 4.5 % of the total employment in the EU. This employment level fell by 2% between 2008 and 2009, however once the crisis is overcome, employment growth in the sector is expected to resume, together with transport activity, especially if the recovery is export-led. It is likely, therefore, that restructuring in all transport sub-sectors and modes will be facilitated by the expected sustained growth in activity. Projections for transport activity estimate that, based on current transport policies, most modes of transport will considerably increase their activity up to 2030 (in this case 34 % for passengers and 38 % for freight — see table 6.2).179 However, growth in activity will require either increases in productivity of the existing labour force, which is already highly productive,180 or increases in employment. Further, an active policy of decarbonisation may imply higher employment needs in low-carbon transport modes such as railways, inland waterways, short sea shipping and public transport, as well as in intermodal logistics. It should be highlighted, moreover, that a modal shift from the car to public transport will produce net increases in jobs as the transport services which private drivers produce are not accounted for in general employment and GDP statistics. The introduction of the White Paper Transport 2050 policies will boost the rates of growth of the more energy efficient modes. Road transport will still grow, but at a slightly lower rate than in a ‘no policy change scenario’ The development of a dense and extensive HST network favoured by the White Paper will help to bring the very high growth of aviation (100 %) to more manageable proportions. Table 6.2: Projections in passenger and freight growth, 2005-2030, by transport sub-sector without policy changes
4.2: DECARBONISATION AND GREEN JOBSThe decarbonisation of transport will be led in the short to medium term (up to 2020) by the search for energy efficiency in all vehicles and modes, and by setting a level-playing field between the different modes. Energy efficiency increases will largely result from improving current conventional technologies, making wider use of information technologies and setting stringent vehicle energy efficiency standards. The level playing field between different modes will notably require the removal of unjustified subsidies and moving towards the wide application of the user-pays and polluter-pays principles. The latter move is expected to provoke a shift towards more energy-efficient forms of transport. In the shorter term, two ways of job creation or job loss can be distinguished:
Rather than being due to the early effects of the decarbonisation process, in the shorter term, restructuring will most likely be mainly caused by the establishment of a European Transport Area, global competition and the enhanced use of information technologies.181 The market penetration of alternative fuels will be gradual, giving rise to the need to synchronise investments in infrastructure and vehicles. Its effects on the labour force are not expected to be significant before 2020, although critical bottlenecks could appear and should be identified and eliminated (see box 6.3 on green jobs). In the meantime, the main focus of this low-carbon technology strand should be on ensuring the availability of appropriate human and economic resources for R&D, not least through coordination of the actions of the private sector and of the Member States and the Union. At the same time, an effort should be made to ensure that the education system, which will educate the generations that will carry out the greater part of transition in the transport sector, allows students to improve their STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) skills, which will be much in need in the future. It is likely that the system will become knowledge-intensive before becoming low-carbon, just because the IT revolution is already taking place and many transport sub-sectors have embraced the adoption of IT. While the European satellite navigation system Galileo is in the process of becoming operational, GPS use is already pervasive and its use, combined with that of mobile phones, has greatly improved the efficiency of road and other modes of transport. While mode specific smart mobility systems have been or are being developed (SESAR for air, ITS for road, ERTMS for rail, SafeSeaNet and eMaritime for maritime, RIS for inland navigation), their deployment is often delayed or fragmented. Box 6.3: The green and smart transport jobs of the future: purely green jobs and the greening of conventional jobs Purely green jobs could be those that are needed to deploy electric, fuel cell or other non conventional vehicles and to adapt infrastructures to the needs of a vehicle fleet that uses a wide variety of fuels. Petrol stations would offer a variety of refuelling possibilities, including electricity, biofuels, hydrogen, methane and conventional diesel and petrol fuels. Other types of green jobs include those in the information and communications technology sector providing services to transport and those jobs in the manufacturing sectors that will build green transport means. Critical bottlenecks could appear in the supply of these green jobs. Previous experience of large-scale demonstration of electric vehicles has highlighted a major problem of skills shortages, throughout the value chain of design, production, distribution, sales, maintenance, disposal, and emergency first response. In addition, there are a number of concerns, including the following:
Beyond — and even before — the initial pilot scale demonstrations, mature networks of qualified and certified staff will need to be in place for all the above functions. A serious effort of resource planning is therefore required. Considerable work was carried out by the ‘International Partnership of the Hydrogen Economy’ to identify training needs and draft training curricula. Similarly, the ‘Californian Air Resource Board’ has studied training requirements. During the first phase of commercialisation of electric vehicles and hydrogen fuel cell vehicles (EVs/HFCVs), skills for the current internal combustion engine (ICE) technology and additional new skills for the electric power train, batteries and control systems will be required. This phase will also coincide with an internalisation of electric drive-train technology development within the automotive manufacturers which will therefore also need these new skills. In terms of anticipating and managing restructuring, the skills and qualification levels needed for electric vehicles and hydrogen fuel cell vehicles will be essential. As announced in the European Commission’s Communication ‘European strategy on clean and energy efficient vehicles’,182 the Commission will support the creation of a European Sectoral Skills Council, aiming at creating a network of Member States’ national observatories. The Commission will also target the use of the European Social Fund, starting in 2011 to encourage retraining and upskilling. Other modes of transport present similar problems. For instance, the use of alternative energy in maritime transport where emerging new propulsion technology such as the use of gas-fuelled ships or wind energy propulsion will require safety standards and new skills which could be of benefit to the revalorisation of the European workforce. As regards gas-fuelled ships, interim guidelines on safety have been developed in the framework of the International Maritime Organisation (IMO), which will be complemented by the development and finalisation of the International Code of Safety for Gas-fuelled Ships by 2014. The use of wind energy in maritime transport is still at the research stage and will require new skills also, but in a longer timeframe. Alongside ‘green jobs’ there are what could be called ‘conventional transport greening jobs’. The greening of the transport sector can be seen as making more commercially attractive and increasing the use of the greener modes of transport while ‘greening’ their more competitive rivals and making a more efficient and ‘greener’ use of all modes of transport. To compete with road and aviation, the low-carbon modes of transport have to provide better services, which often require specific skills:
Finally, there is the more controversial ‘greening of brown jobs’, which could include the development of longer road freight vehicles involving the implementation of special training for the drivers, notably on energy efficiency and safety aspects. In the air transport sector, training linked to the use of the Airbus A-380 is a case in point, where the use of larger aircraft produces environmental benefits. Directory: pub -> ECD ECD -> Commission staff working document ECD -> Table of contents I instruments Error: Reference source not found ECD -> Table of annexes annex I: Glossary 4 ECD -> En commission of the european communities brussels, 12. 12. 2008 com(2008) 853 final annex annex II to VIII ECD -> Report from the commission to the european parliament and the council european community safa programme aggregated information report ECD -> Report from the commission european community safa programme ECD -> Commission of the european communities brussels, 24 2008 ECD -> Commission staff working document ECD -> Communication from the commission to the european parliament, the council, the european economic and social committee and the committee of the regions ECD -> Annex I iccat species Download 1.43 Mb. Share with your friends:
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