Recent Scottish climate gains will be lost if trains are not restored to a full timetable.
And the Scottish Government must deliver a fares cut to get travellers back on board the trains.
That’s according to Perthshire’s Mike Robinson — chairman of Stop Climate Chaos Scotland.
Latest figures show the Scottish Government hit its greenhouse gas targets in 2020.
That’s after missing the key goal repeatedly in previous years.
Transport played a key part in the 2020 progress – with car emissions dropping by 60%.
Lockdown changes such as more working from home and fewer car trips helped the Scottish Government to deliver on its climate promises.
But while that may appear like good news, Mike said the gains were an “accidental consequence” of lockdown.
And with public transport becoming “unappealing” because of a drastically slashed timetable, he fears travellers are already returning to their cars.
Why have some travellers ditched public transport?
Mike said: “Covid scared people away from public transport.
“So there’s a job to get back to the levels we were at.
“With the strikes and various disruptions, that’s making it [train travel] even more difficult and unappealing.”
Mike said making transport future-proof is a “big job”.
“It’s not very joined up.
“Most of the sectors within transport itself don’t talk to each other.
“We need it to join up to solve some bigger problems.”
Mike cited the recent cut in rail prices in Germany as an example of the action needed to get people using public transport over private cars.
He added: “Whereas our prices have gone up and they’re hardly any available.
“We’re not doing the right things.”
Lockdown offers ‘valuable lessons’ for the change required
The 2020 target was for a 56% reduction in all emissions against 1990 levels.
New figures show the Scottish Government cut 58.7%, compared to that base line.
Michael Matheson is net zero secretary in the Scottish Government.
While heralding the results, he remained cautious.
“The new data shows underlying progress in reducing emissions across key sectors of the economy.
“Nonetheless, the most significant changes are in the transport sector and are associated with the temporary measures taken in response to the Covid-19 pandemic.
“We must be prepared for these figures to substantially rebound.”
He said the emission reductions during lockdown offers “valuable lessons” in the “scale of transformational change needed”.
“Embedding habits such as working from home and using cars less can make a real impact on reducing emissions.”
Conversation