Light rail’s heavy carbon footprint

Building a light rail line between Auckland’s CBD and the airport sounds like a good thing for the climate and reducing transport emissions. But the new plan to dig a long tunnel and lay a new railway line will actually generate an extra 400,000 tonnes of carbon emissions in its first 10 years, and take until 2040 before it starts being carbon negative. Still sound like a good idea? In this episode, Bernard Hickey talks to transport minister Michael Wood and economist Andrew Schoultz about how the government’s light rail plans fit with their climate targets, and how business and government planners are incorporating things like emissions forecasts, shadow carbon prices and discount rates into their planning.

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