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Romania has to modernize over a thousand kilometers of railway infrastructure, reads the data of the report "Let's take the train. The rebirth of train journeys in a European Romania", made by the 2Celsius Association, within the Europe on Rail project.
According to the document, presented on Friday in an online specialized workshop, the railway represents the most efficient mode of transport at present and contributes only 1.5% of the CO2 emissions in the European Union from the transport sector, with a market share of 8.5%.
"To put the data in context, 27% of the EU-28's total greenhouse gas emissions came from the transport sector, according to the European Environment Agency (2019). Thanks to electric trains powered by renewable energy, it is possible to foresee almost zero carbon for travels and transport. But it's not just CO2 emissions. The negative externalities (the negative effects that are not internalized in the price paid by the user, such as air pollution, but also the accidents or congestion) of the railway transport represent only 2% of the external cost of transport in Europe," says the producer of the report, Raul Cazan, president of the 2Celsius Association.
2Celsius experts argue that the EU can offer preferential loans for green transport through the European Investment Bank (EIB) to national operators, as well as new investors.
2Celsius, a non-governmental organisation established in 2010 with the aim of influencing climate change policies at national and European level, is a member of the international organisations European Environmental Bureau, Climate Action Network Europe and the European Federation for Transport and the Environment (T&E).
Europe on Rail means a network of NGOs from Poland, Germany, France, Spain and Romania, which aims to support a revitalization of the railway in Europe and to come up with measures to strengthen the primacy of railway travel in international passenger transport.
