Climate and Transportation Solutions features the latest thinking from leaders and experts on transportation, energy and climate issues, bringing insights and recommendations from the 12th meeting of the renowned Asilomar Conference on Transportation and Energy Policy to a broad audience including researchers, policymakers, and students interested in the future of energy and transportation. Climate change is now widely recognized as the most critical environmental problem facing the planet. Transportation is a major cause of the problem, and it has a key role to play in its solution. This book addresses whether it is possible to reduce transport-related CO2 emissions by 50 to 80 percent by 2050, and how this might be accomplished. The UC Davis Institute of Transportation Studies organized the July 2009 Asilomar Conference on behalf of the Energy, Alternative Fuels, and Sustainable Transportation committees of the U.S. Transportation Research Board, a research arm of the National Academies. This invitation-only, three-day event hosted 200 of the most sophisticated and knowledgeable experts and leaders on climate policy and transportation from five continents. The chapters of this book evolved from presentations and discussions at the conference. Strategies for reducing GHG emissions from the transportation sector can be categorized into three areas: improving the efficiency of the vehicles, reducing the carbon content in the fuel, and reducing vehicle use. This book addresses the effects of energy use in transportation on global GHG emissions and suggests new policies in each of these areas. The chapters examine climate change and transportation issues and strategies in specific regions of the world, address new policy approaches to reduce GHG emissions, and examine the potential role for new fuels and vehicle technologies in combating climate change.

More than 250 experts from around the world gathered at the Asilomar Transportation and Energy Conference in August 2007 to tackle what many agree is the greatest environmental challenge the world faces: climate change. This 11th Biennial Conference, organized under the auspices of the Energy and Alternative Fuels Committees of the U.S. Transportation Research Board, examined key climate change policy issues and strategies to combat climate impacts from the transportation sector, a leading source of greenhouse gas emissions. This book includes chapters by leading presenters at the Asilomar Conference that reflect the most current views of the world's experts about a critical and rapidly evolving energy and environmental problem. The chapters in this book examine increasing worldwide emissions of greenhouse gases, uncertain oil supply, evolving climate change science, public attitudes toward climate change, and the implications for the U.S. of growth in China, India and elsewhere. They propose methods to reduce growth in vehicle travel through alternative fuel, new technologies, and land use planning. They examine the costs and the potential for greenhouse gas reduction through deployment of advanced technology and alternative fuels and propose strategies to motivate consumers to buy fuel efficient and alternative fuel vehicles, including heavy duty trucks.