Transport decarbonisation in Wales: policy in practice and addressing evidence gaps

Overview

Ken Skates MS, Welsh Government Cabinet Secretary for Transport and North Wales, will give a keynote address/ministerial statement on current transport issues in Wales.

The Welsh Government has led the way internationally in respect of progressive climate and social policy, enshrining in law the need to protect future generations through the Wellbeing of Future Generations Act and Senedd Cymru were the first parliament in the world to declare a climate emergency in April 2019.

The Welsh Government continues to display forward-thinking ambition, particularly within the transport sector. The publication of many notable commitments and strategies in Wales includes the Llywodraeth Cymru (Welsh Government) Roads Review. Driven by the need to decarbonise our transport network, the Roads Review places carbon at the heart of decision making.

Now three years on from the Roads Review and in light of the updated version of WelTAG, there is increasing experience applying this in practice. This includes a number of cases where local authorities have returned to the drawing board to identify new options at locations where previous road solutions were cancelled. 

While there are now examples of this leading to decisions more compatible with climate commitments, there are also plenty of challenges remaining to applying this at scale. This includes gaps in the evidence and methodologies needed to tackle the hard questions that climate commitments and Welsh policies now require transport planners and designers to consider. 

In this presentation Olivia, Tom and Alex - transport decarbonisation experts at WSP in the UK, will discuss what our progressive climate policies in Wales mean for transport strategy and PAS2080 aligned scheme development.

They will cover how strategy and scheme development interface in practice, at different tiers of national, regional and local governance and how an evidence-led approach to carbon can be embedded in influential stages of transport planning such as regional transport plans.

Across this presentation they will draw on experience of developing innovative new methods, tools and evidence across the UK and internationally, and share insights of how this can be applied to support transport authorities in Wales to align their decision-making with carbon budgets and the transition to net zero.