over 25% of all our energy is used in
transport that problem is that the
emissions from burning fossil fuel in
transport are slowly killing us so I
want to try to convince you that our
attitude towards energy has really got
to change I know that energy is very
accessible at the flick of a switch but
actually we need to use a lot less of it
or at least get it from a greener source
basically we’ve got to stop burning the
dinosaurs and we need to change our
behaviour in how we decide to get from A
to B we all need and want mobility in a
civilized society to transport goods to
mobilize the emergency services to
access health care for education to get
to work to enjoy ourselves in our
leisure time mobility is truly taken as
the mark of a civilized society now I
recognize travel with about 30,000 miles
last year there were being commuting
business trips holidays and leisure
activities and over my sort of limited
lifetime that would be maybe about one
and a half million miles in a lifetime
okay so one and a half million miles now
I don’t know how many barrels of oil
I’ve used but it’s a lot and that’s just
for me so I’d like to ask you to ask
yourselves how far you think you
traveled in the last 12 months and how
much oil you burn to do that and then
multiply then up by the global
population that’s a lot of oil we’ve
seen an unprecedented increase in the
global population it’s been nearly three
fold in my lifetime
and I’m really not that old and I’m not
responsible either way so we’re all
consumers we exploit resources we buy
stuff and we want to move around the the
world’s population is increasingly City
based so we have congestion in urban
areas that’s all we use is vast amounts
of energy it generates emissions and air
quality issues urban mobility therefore
represents a significant challenge as
the number of urban journeys increase we
reckon that about 20% of all the traffic
driving around is just looking for a
parking space another 20% of city
traffic is actually accessing healthcare
services people going to see their
doctors people going to hospitals
getting prescriptions perhaps when
they’re going to the hospitals they may
even be going there to consult about
some kind of respiratory related problem
how ironic that would be now our planet
needs a blanket of gases around it to
protect us and the direct effects of the
Sun and to give us a relatively stable
climates it would be very very cold
without that blanket of gas these are
the natural greenhouse gases the problem
is that we’ve been adding to that
blanket from burning fossil fuel and
that’s been making things a little bit
warmer so this is what we call manmade
global warming the estimates for the
increase in carbon dioxide levels are
rather worrying emissions from transport
alone have been rising at about 6
percent per year for the last 40 years
and that’s despite all the mitigation
measures that have been taken so far
like all of the more efficient vehicles
still rising at 6%
now carbon dioxide levels have been
monitored for a long time in fact a guy
called Ralph Keeling has been measuring
co2 levels at the top of Mauna Loa in
Hawaii for probably 40 or 50 years and
the so-called Keeling curve records a
steady increase in carbon dioxide levels
of four parts per million per year every
year year-on-year currently it’s at
least 400 parts per million if we don’t
do anything about that
it’ll be 700 parts per million by the
end of this century
now the 2050 climate change act which
lots of governments signed up to
requires us to get back to levels of co2
last seen hundreds of years ago frankly
I think that’s impossible now the focus
of many governments has in fact changed
from looking at co2 to air quality
because airborne pollution is being
measured and the effects on health are
becoming recognized tailpipe emissions
from dirty old diesel engines are
obvious but petrol engine vehicles also
emit all sorts of gases and particulates
they’re just too small to see and then
there’s the dust from the brakes and the
tires because these components wear out
so local air pollution in cities is seen
as quite a big problem and that leads to
the respiratory diseases asthma and so
on globally we are told that there are
over 5 million premature deaths per year
from poor air quality in the UK it’s
reckoned to be over 50,000 premature
deaths per year you see it’s just
killing us slowly it’s a little bit like
passive smoking
now against that background the world
energy consumption could well treble by
the end of this century basically
because it’s linked to population and to
F alone if you’ve got money you buy
stuff you move around you commute you go
on holidays globally most of our energy
comes from fossil fuels burning coal
burning gas burning oil
now these fuels took millions of years
to form
they’ll take just as long to replace and
yet we burn them in seconds there we
also have nuclear energy it’s apparently
clean but that’s before we start to
consider the long term nuclear waste now
what we call renewable energy is the
energy that occurs naturally and
continuously in the environment such as
the energy from the Sun from the wind
waves tidal flows and so on and these
sources are basically inexhaustible but
they are intermittent in nature so
there’s a growing demand for us to get
renewables to be a much larger part of
the energy mix currently they’re about
20% of the UK’s electricity grid but
they really do need to be much more so
if we bring this all back to transport
how can we get from A to B in our cities
well of course we take encourage more
walking and cycling that would be good
for us we would encourage people to use
public transport more we could have
intelligent transport systems we could
get real-time information about
congestion so that we could avoid the
bottlenecks
we could reduce congestion and pollution
with fewer more efficient vehicles we
could share vehicles most people who
have a car barely use it for five
percent of its life so maybe we could
rent out the other ninety five percent
in effect sort of Airbnb a car but
better than that perhaps would be to
imagine a monthly mobility card like an
oyster card just for city dwellers sort
of go anywhere use any form of transport
you like just for a monthly subscription
I think that would be a great idea to
reduce congestion and utilize resources
which we are already using and have got
out there the general approach so far to
to clean up the air in our cities is to
go electric so why would you want to go
electric well because there are no
tailpipe emissions there’s no pollution
at source and a nice bonus it’s quieter
the question is where does the
electricity come from it’s not magic
you know it comes from the grid and so
unless we have a much greener energy
grid the emissions are just transferred
to the power station so it’s good for
the city doesn’t make much difference to
the planet in terms of personal mobility
the issue is weight heavy vehicles will
always use a lot of energy especially to
go up a hill and it doesn’t matter where
they’re electric or fossil fuel they
just use a lot of energy it takes a lot
of energy to move a heavy object an
empty car weighs around about one and a
half tons an empty double-decker bus
about 12 tons so one person in a car is
basically moving at least twenty times
their own body weight basically we’re
moving twenty times our own body weight
just to get from A to B the
mr. transport is to get from A to B not
to move all that material as well so
we’re actually moving huge masses of
material it’s very inefficient and
that’s even before we talk about the
efficiency of the modes of transport
themselves and this really matters if
the energy that is used to move that
transport is not renewable energy so
let’s just think a little bit more about
electric transport a large battery
electric vehicle a be e V is not going
to save the planet
we need much smaller B V’s better still
smaller than that a light electric
vehicle and le v so we go from B V’s to
LEDs and those are great for sort of one
or two people but better than that
still would be to get onto two wheels
perhaps with an electric scooter or my
favorite the electric bicycle and as an
example with me here this is what we
call a pedelec a pedal assisted electric
bicycle these things use tiny amounts of
energy they could probably be charged
from the Sun directly through a little
solar panel my gift to you this could be
the ultimate transport option for cities
it’s a bit like range-extended cycling
in effect it’s like cheating and you
don’t need a license to use it one of
the big problems are cycling is that if
you cycle up a hill it’s hard work if
you’re cycling into the wind it’s hard
work so you get hot and sweaty the
beauty of this is this gets rid of the
hills it’s gets rid of the wind and you
don’t even need to wear lycra to drive
it now I know the lycra things are
personal choice some people look quite
good in lycra but you know hold that
thought
so what’s the government done to
encourage us to move around in a
different more sustainable way well
government policies and regulations are
basically sticks and carrots the sticks
are taxes and charges this very week the
toxic charge was introduced into London
to penalize the older more polluting
vehicles we can reduce the amount of
available parking spaces in city centres
so people are forced to find another way
of getting there and of course we can
have one-way systems to redirect traffic
away from the centre and what are the
rewards what are the carrots well an
improved public transport system if
you’re going to stop people taking their
own form to transport into a city you
have to provide a viable option so
improve public transport many cities
have done that you can provide
specialized parking spaces just real it
trickles maybe even with a charging
point in it and we could have proper
cycle paths you know the Netherlands
have spent 20 times more on cycling
infrastructure than the UK since the
1970s no wonder people choose to cycle
in the Netherlands it’s a very very
pleasant experience so how can personal
mobility be maintained in future without
burning so much fossil fuel well we need
a much greener electricity grid to make
electric transport more credible we need
to reduce congestion by taking more
vehicles off the road and we could go to
a system of usership rather than
ownership and maybe in the future
autonomous vehicles will take us around
that will actually reduce the number of
individual vehicles on the road I think
perhaps more importantly than anything
else is our behavior we’ve got to
catalyze a change in behavior to
demonstrate the advantages of doing
things differently and to make it a fun
now electric cars are fast and they’re
fun but our musical stairs the way to
make more of us think the stairs here
play a tune when they walked on and
that’s a kind of reward for not using
the electrically powered escalator next
to them so at least they make a smile
and maybe think a little bit about the
energy that we’re not using if we get
the musical route so going back to the
beginning of my talk how far are you
going to travel in your lifetime and how
are you going to do it without burning
so much fossil fuel thank you
[Applause]
you
transport that problem is that the
emissions from burning fossil fuel in
transport are slowly killing us so I
want to try to convince you that our
attitude towards energy has really got
to change I know that energy is very
accessible at the flick of a switch but
actually we need to use a lot less of it
or at least get it from a greener source
basically we’ve got to stop burning the
dinosaurs and we need to change our
behaviour in how we decide to get from A
to B we all need and want mobility in a
civilized society to transport goods to
mobilize the emergency services to
access health care for education to get
to work to enjoy ourselves in our
leisure time mobility is truly taken as
the mark of a civilized society now I
recognize travel with about 30,000 miles
last year there were being commuting
business trips holidays and leisure
activities and over my sort of limited
lifetime that would be maybe about one
and a half million miles in a lifetime
okay so one and a half million miles now
I don’t know how many barrels of oil
I’ve used but it’s a lot and that’s just
for me so I’d like to ask you to ask
yourselves how far you think you
traveled in the last 12 months and how
much oil you burn to do that and then
multiply then up by the global
population that’s a lot of oil we’ve
seen an unprecedented increase in the
global population it’s been nearly three
fold in my lifetime
and I’m really not that old and I’m not
responsible either way so we’re all
consumers we exploit resources we buy
stuff and we want to move around the the
world’s population is increasingly City
based so we have congestion in urban
areas that’s all we use is vast amounts
of energy it generates emissions and air
quality issues urban mobility therefore
represents a significant challenge as
the number of urban journeys increase we
reckon that about 20% of all the traffic
driving around is just looking for a
parking space another 20% of city
traffic is actually accessing healthcare
services people going to see their
doctors people going to hospitals
getting prescriptions perhaps when
they’re going to the hospitals they may
even be going there to consult about
some kind of respiratory related problem
how ironic that would be now our planet
needs a blanket of gases around it to
protect us and the direct effects of the
Sun and to give us a relatively stable
climates it would be very very cold
without that blanket of gas these are
the natural greenhouse gases the problem
is that we’ve been adding to that
blanket from burning fossil fuel and
that’s been making things a little bit
warmer so this is what we call manmade
global warming the estimates for the
increase in carbon dioxide levels are
rather worrying emissions from transport
alone have been rising at about 6
percent per year for the last 40 years
and that’s despite all the mitigation
measures that have been taken so far
like all of the more efficient vehicles
still rising at 6%
now carbon dioxide levels have been
monitored for a long time in fact a guy
called Ralph Keeling has been measuring
co2 levels at the top of Mauna Loa in
Hawaii for probably 40 or 50 years and
the so-called Keeling curve records a
steady increase in carbon dioxide levels
of four parts per million per year every
year year-on-year currently it’s at
least 400 parts per million if we don’t
do anything about that
it’ll be 700 parts per million by the
end of this century
now the 2050 climate change act which
lots of governments signed up to
requires us to get back to levels of co2
last seen hundreds of years ago frankly
I think that’s impossible now the focus
of many governments has in fact changed
from looking at co2 to air quality
because airborne pollution is being
measured and the effects on health are
becoming recognized tailpipe emissions
from dirty old diesel engines are
obvious but petrol engine vehicles also
emit all sorts of gases and particulates
they’re just too small to see and then
there’s the dust from the brakes and the
tires because these components wear out
so local air pollution in cities is seen
as quite a big problem and that leads to
the respiratory diseases asthma and so
on globally we are told that there are
over 5 million premature deaths per year
from poor air quality in the UK it’s
reckoned to be over 50,000 premature
deaths per year you see it’s just
killing us slowly it’s a little bit like
passive smoking
now against that background the world
energy consumption could well treble by
the end of this century basically
because it’s linked to population and to
F alone if you’ve got money you buy
stuff you move around you commute you go
on holidays globally most of our energy
comes from fossil fuels burning coal
burning gas burning oil
now these fuels took millions of years
to form
they’ll take just as long to replace and
yet we burn them in seconds there we
also have nuclear energy it’s apparently
clean but that’s before we start to
consider the long term nuclear waste now
what we call renewable energy is the
energy that occurs naturally and
continuously in the environment such as
the energy from the Sun from the wind
waves tidal flows and so on and these
sources are basically inexhaustible but
they are intermittent in nature so
there’s a growing demand for us to get
renewables to be a much larger part of
the energy mix currently they’re about
20% of the UK’s electricity grid but
they really do need to be much more so
if we bring this all back to transport
how can we get from A to B in our cities
well of course we take encourage more
walking and cycling that would be good
for us we would encourage people to use
public transport more we could have
intelligent transport systems we could
get real-time information about
congestion so that we could avoid the
bottlenecks
we could reduce congestion and pollution
with fewer more efficient vehicles we
could share vehicles most people who
have a car barely use it for five
percent of its life so maybe we could
rent out the other ninety five percent
in effect sort of Airbnb a car but
better than that perhaps would be to
imagine a monthly mobility card like an
oyster card just for city dwellers sort
of go anywhere use any form of transport
you like just for a monthly subscription
I think that would be a great idea to
reduce congestion and utilize resources
which we are already using and have got
out there the general approach so far to
to clean up the air in our cities is to
go electric so why would you want to go
electric well because there are no
tailpipe emissions there’s no pollution
at source and a nice bonus it’s quieter
the question is where does the
electricity come from it’s not magic
you know it comes from the grid and so
unless we have a much greener energy
grid the emissions are just transferred
to the power station so it’s good for
the city doesn’t make much difference to
the planet in terms of personal mobility
the issue is weight heavy vehicles will
always use a lot of energy especially to
go up a hill and it doesn’t matter where
they’re electric or fossil fuel they
just use a lot of energy it takes a lot
of energy to move a heavy object an
empty car weighs around about one and a
half tons an empty double-decker bus
about 12 tons so one person in a car is
basically moving at least twenty times
their own body weight basically we’re
moving twenty times our own body weight
just to get from A to B the
mr. transport is to get from A to B not
to move all that material as well so
we’re actually moving huge masses of
material it’s very inefficient and
that’s even before we talk about the
efficiency of the modes of transport
themselves and this really matters if
the energy that is used to move that
transport is not renewable energy so
let’s just think a little bit more about
electric transport a large battery
electric vehicle a be e V is not going
to save the planet
we need much smaller B V’s better still
smaller than that a light electric
vehicle and le v so we go from B V’s to
LEDs and those are great for sort of one
or two people but better than that
still would be to get onto two wheels
perhaps with an electric scooter or my
favorite the electric bicycle and as an
example with me here this is what we
call a pedelec a pedal assisted electric
bicycle these things use tiny amounts of
energy they could probably be charged
from the Sun directly through a little
solar panel my gift to you this could be
the ultimate transport option for cities
it’s a bit like range-extended cycling
in effect it’s like cheating and you
don’t need a license to use it one of
the big problems are cycling is that if
you cycle up a hill it’s hard work if
you’re cycling into the wind it’s hard
work so you get hot and sweaty the
beauty of this is this gets rid of the
hills it’s gets rid of the wind and you
don’t even need to wear lycra to drive
it now I know the lycra things are
personal choice some people look quite
good in lycra but you know hold that
thought
so what’s the government done to
encourage us to move around in a
different more sustainable way well
government policies and regulations are
basically sticks and carrots the sticks
are taxes and charges this very week the
toxic charge was introduced into London
to penalize the older more polluting
vehicles we can reduce the amount of
available parking spaces in city centres
so people are forced to find another way
of getting there and of course we can
have one-way systems to redirect traffic
away from the centre and what are the
rewards what are the carrots well an
improved public transport system if
you’re going to stop people taking their
own form to transport into a city you
have to provide a viable option so
improve public transport many cities
have done that you can provide
specialized parking spaces just real it
trickles maybe even with a charging
point in it and we could have proper
cycle paths you know the Netherlands
have spent 20 times more on cycling
infrastructure than the UK since the
1970s no wonder people choose to cycle
in the Netherlands it’s a very very
pleasant experience so how can personal
mobility be maintained in future without
burning so much fossil fuel well we need
a much greener electricity grid to make
electric transport more credible we need
to reduce congestion by taking more
vehicles off the road and we could go to
a system of usership rather than
ownership and maybe in the future
autonomous vehicles will take us around
that will actually reduce the number of
individual vehicles on the road I think
perhaps more importantly than anything
else is our behavior we’ve got to
catalyze a change in behavior to
demonstrate the advantages of doing
things differently and to make it a fun
now electric cars are fast and they’re
fun but our musical stairs the way to
make more of us think the stairs here
play a tune when they walked on and
that’s a kind of reward for not using
the electrically powered escalator next
to them so at least they make a smile
and maybe think a little bit about the
energy that we’re not using if we get
the musical route so going back to the
beginning of my talk how far are you
going to travel in your lifetime and how
are you going to do it without burning
so much fossil fuel thank you
[Applause]
you
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