Transport: What is the environmental cost of NI’s car dependency?

Northern Ireland has a legally-binding target of cutting emissions to net zero by 2050 .

That would mean what we are producing is offset or balanced by what we are removing from the atmosphere via emissions reduction, storage or other methods.

But there are no specific targets for transport in the Climate Change Act.

And there are concerns about our ability to reach any of the aims.

“If we’re not going to get real about reducing transport, we’re never going to meet the climate targets that the government has signed up to,” said Geraint Ellis, professor of environmental planning at Queen’s University Belfast.

“Basically from, I’d say the 1950s, it’s been the car that has been a focus, its obvious attractions, the lifestyle, the convenience.

“But clearly the impact it has on air quality, structure of cities, community, divisions, they’ve never been really addressed.

“So I think we’ve built in dependence on the car, so now we’re in a situation that it’s actually really, really difficult to start extracting ourselves from that.

“The whole structure of our cities, the way we spend the transport budget, the whole mindset and culture of what we’re doing – it’s a car-led society at the moment.”