National Highways is set to claim a huge fall in projected traffic emissions from the planned Lower Thames Crossing (LTC), the project’s boss has said.
The fall in emissions is related to the projected uptake of electric and other low carbon vehicles. At a meeting of the Association of South Essex Local Authorities in February, the scheme’s executive director, Matt Palmer, said: ‘For our assessment on Lower Thames, and we're about to publish the numbers shortly, it’s an 80% reduction in the carbon impact of Lower Thames.
'It actually gets down to a very, very small number; it completely changes the dynamic, and that's really only just emerged today you know in the last six to nine months as this policy comes forward, so significant reduction in carbon.'
Although Mr Palmer cited expected changes to the vehicle fleet, as a result of plans to end the sale of petrol and diesel vehicles in the 2021 Decarbonising Transport plan, National Highways has said the latest version of the Government's Emissions Factor Toolkit (EFT) - version 11, released last November - does not take into account such projections.
This means such assumptions about the future prevalence of electric vehicles are not currently part of the Government’s official emissions model and so National Highways would struggle to bank these projections for statutory purposes such as the LTC's forthcoming planning application.
The Government briefed Highways that it is working on updating its official model in a way that would allow such new projections around decarbonisation to be taken into account.
Highways understands that environment department Defra is working on an update to the latest version of the EFT that will incorporate the latest fleet projections related to existing policy from the Department for Transport (DfT) and up to date COPERT emissions factors.
Measures announced in the Transport decarbonisation plan will be incorporated as DfT projections under the toolkit once these are brought into force through legislation.
This means that any changes to the toolkit may be some way off and it remains unclear how ambitions in the DfT decarbonisation plan will translate into projected vehicle emissions.
Andrew Kidd, the LTC’s outcomes director, has said it will publish estimates of carbon emissions for both the scheme’s construction and operation in advance of a new planning application, due this year.
Mr Kidd told Highways that the carbon emissions for the scheme are still in roughly the same envelope as an early estimate of six million tonnes of carbon dioxide, suggesting that this may be the starting point for the potential 80% cut.
National Highways has confirmed that this refers to an estimate of 5.98 million tonnes for operation traffic emissions in a 2016 appraisal summary table.
However, subsequent documents have presented significantly lower estimates for the scheme’s emissions during the 60 years of operation, including a 2020 appraisal summary table that gave a figure of 2.76 million tonnes for traffic emissions, a figure that also appears in the scheme's October 2020 Carbon and Energy Plan.
National Highways has conceded that this calculation was 'correct at the time it was made' but insists that the early figure of 5.98 million tonnes remains its 'current estimate'.
Using the higher figure would allow National Highways to claim a greater cut in carbon emissions, something that prompted opponents of the scheme to criticise the roads operator's claims.
Laura Blake, chair of the Thames Crossing Action Group, said: 'National Highways continue to attempt to greenwash the proposed LTC, but too many of us see through the propaganda, and they are unable to provide evidence to back up their talk.'
