ROAD CONSTRUCTION AND ECONOMIC GROWTH FROM A SOUTHERN EUROPEAN PERSPECTIVE

Abstract

Transportation represents the sector of human activities that seems more difficult to adapt in a context of sustainable development. Besides the well-known local environmental impacts, the increasing contribution to emissions of greenhouse gases will represent an alarming deficit in the following decades. The decision taken in April 1995 by the Conference of the Parties in Berlin to define by 1997 limitation and reduction objectives on greenhouse gases emissions for industrialized countries by 2005, 2010 and 2020, could make a radical redirection of the transportation policies obligatory. The carbon dioxide contribution of mobility is in fact growing faster than in all other sectors and the conventional scenarios prepared by different governments consider a continuous increase of the emissions in the next 10-20 years. Since road transport is mainly responsible for this situation, particular attention should be devoted to the policies able to reduce the contribution of this sector, controlling the mobility demand, improving the vehicles technologies and rethinking the investments in infrastructures. (A)