Round Tables
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The Wider Economic Benefits of Transport
Macro-, Meso- and Micro-Economic Transport Planning and Investment Tools
Round Table 140
The standard cost-benefit analysis of transport infrastructure investment
projects weighs a project's costs against users' benefits. This approach
has been challenged on the grounds that it ignores wider economic impacts
of such projects. Since there is empirical evidence
that these effects
can be substantial, relying on the standard approach potentially produces
misleading results.
At the International Transport Forum Round Table, leading academics and
practitioners addressed these concerns and examined a range of potential
approaches for evaluating wider impacts - negative as well as positive.
They concluded that for smaller projects, it is better to focus on
timely availability of results, even if this means forgoing
sophisticated analysis of wider impacts. For larger projects or
investment programs, customized analysis of these effects is more
easily justifiable. Creating consistent appraisal procedures is a
research priority.
Summary and Conclusions
208 pages; OECD, Paris, July 2008
€75 ; $116 ; £54 ; ¥10.400
ISBN 978-92-821-0160-5 |
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Oil Dependence: Is Transport Running Out of
Affordable Fuel? Round Table 139
Oil consumption is increasingly concentrated in transport, and
relatively limited fluctuations in transport demand can have increasingly
significant effects on oil prices. Oil prices rose to all time highs at the
beginning of 2008, exceeding $100 a barrel for the first time since the 1979
oil crisis. The underlying driver was demand for oil from rapidly developing
economies and especially China, where transport accounts for the largest part
of oil consumption.
OPEC market power is increasing as production of conventional oil outside OPEC
has reached a plateau. Oil from tar sands in Canada and elsewhere is available
in very large quantities, and is competitive at sustained prices above $40 a
barrel. But processing such oil doubles CO2 emissions on a well-to-wheels basis
compared to using conventional oil to fuel transport.
This Round Table assesses the policy instruments available to address oil
security and climate change and examines their interaction with measures to
manage congestion and mitigate local air pollution. A number of
incompatibilities and trade-offs are identified underlining the importance
of integrated policy-making.
This report includes an examination of the factors that drive oil prices
in the short and long term and a discussion of the outlook for oil supply.
Summary and Conclusions
210 pages; OECD, Paris, May 2008
€75 ; $116 ; £54 ; ¥10.400
ISBN 978-92-821-0121-6 |
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Biofuels: Linking Support to Performance. Round
Table 138
Biofuels received USD 15 billion in subsidies on OECD
Member countries in 2007, but did they deliver benefits in terms of
climate change or oil security? Present policies make no link between
support for biofuels and their environmental performance, and biofuels
do not all perform equally well. In fact, much of the current ethanol
and biodiesel production may result in higher overall emissions of
greenhouse gases than using conventional transport fuels - gasoline and
diesel. The papers published in this report examine the economics of
biofuels and assess the potential of conventional biofuel production in
OECD countries, Brazilian ethanol exports and some second generation
biofuels to supply world markets with transport fuels.
This Round Table analyses the critical issues for governments in
determining support for biofuels, particularly the level of
greenhouse gas emissions throughout the life-cycle of these fuels
and the wider environmental impacts of farming biomass. It also
reviews recent progress in developing certification systems for
biofuels - an essential tool for tying support to achievement in
reducing greenhouse gas emissions, although certification cannot be
expected to prevent rainforest destruction for the development of
biofuels crop plantations. The report concludes with a short list of
recommendations for policy reform if support for biofuels is to
contribute effectively to mitigating greenhouse gas emissions.
Summary and Conclusions
224 pages; OECD, Paris, March 2008
€75 ; $105 ; £54 ; ¥10 400
ISBN 978-92-821-0179-7 |
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