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Many people in Europe are willing to shift from air to rail - even for international travel and often even if they have to accept significantly longer travel times. This is shown by a new representative survey conducted by the opinion research institute YouGov in Germany, Poland, France, Spain and the Netherlands. The survey, commissioned by Transport&Environment and Germanwatch, was published to mark the official start of the European Year of Rail 2021 on March 29.
On 29 March, the Portuguese EU Council presidency officially launches the European Year of Rail. Germanwatch and other European NGOs have send an open letter to the Commission and the Portuguese presidency to call for a European rail renaissance. The EU and the member state governments need to use the European Year of Rail 2021 to give a boost to cross-border passenger rail, with the following measures:
This year will be key for future climate policy and especially for sustainable finance in Germany and Europe. Sustainable Finance plays a crucial role in improving climate protection and sustainable growth. To this end, Germanwatch joined forces with the Alliance for Corporate Transparency in order to push towards greater corporate responsibility and disclosure requirements to meet the EU and Paris climate targets. This article kicks off and introduces our briefing series "Full Disclosure: Monthly Briefing on EU Corporate Transparency Regulation", in which we aim to shed light on the need for and benefits of forward-looking reporting requirements in a changing EU regulatory environment.
Bonn/Berlin (25th Jan. 2021). Vulnerable people in developing countries suffer most from extreme weather events like storms, floods and heat waves, while the impacts of climate change are visible around the globe. Being the deadliest and costliest tropical cyclone in the South-West Indian Ocean, tropical Cyclone Idai was labelled “one of the worst weather-related catastrophes in the history of Africa” by UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres.
The European Union has set itself the target to become climate neutral by 2050. Rail could play a key role in the future transport system because it is clean, safe and reliable, and it could become a symbol for the European Green Deal. A strengthened European rail system could (1) better connect people and businesses in Europe, (2) reduce transport emissions by creating alternative options to road transport and aviation, and (3) give a green boost to the European economy post-Covid-19.
The Climate Change Performance Index (CCPI) 2021 published today paints a mixed picture of progress by the European Union (EU) on climate action. While the Scandinavian EU countries, Portugal and the EU as a whole rank high on the index with relatively good indicators, Hungary, Poland and the Czech Republic stand out as outliers on climate progress within the bloc. In the overall ranking, the EU has improved from the 22nd place last year to the 16th place this year, almost exclusively thanks to a much better rated climate policy. The CCPI analyzes and compares climate protection across 57 countries (plus EU as a whole) with the highest emissions, which together account for 90 percent of global emissions.
Rail is already one of the cleanest transport modes. A renaissance of a truly European rail network could not only make a major contribution to achieving the European Union’s climate targets but could also make Europeans feel and live European integration in daily life. Yet, decades of political focus on road and air travel as well as nationalist thinking have led to a patchwork of national rail systems, which are sometimes in very poor shape. Cross-border rail transport is the sore spot of the European transport system. This policy paper presents eight measures to start off the European rail renaissance.