Notes

Definitions

• Car dependence: transport system in which high levels of car use have become a key satisfier of human needs, largely displacing less carbon-intensive alternatives
• Car infrastructure: Roads, parking, enforcement of driving laws
• Carbon lock-in: the interlocking technological, institutional and social forces that can create policy inertia towards the mitigation of global climate change
• Systems of provision approach: recognizes the social, cultural, technical, as well as economic specificities of any one provisioning process, whilst at the same time incorporating understanding of the more general dynamics of capitalism. [more here]
• Road lobby: "Network of vested interests" bringing together the automotive, oil, road haulage, road construction, concrete, steel, insurance, and other industries, as well as motoring clubs

Summary

• Car use/dependency has been coupled with human well being, esp in OECD countries (eg needing a car to get to work)
• Car dependency and transportation generally do not get examined with the appropriate political framework
• Recognizing that transportation is a critical part of climate change mitigation, the authors take a position between (or that combines) the ‘revolutionary’ (a radical critique of modern capitalist societies with an overwhelming focus on deep structures rather than specific energy sectors) and ‘reconfiguration’ (focusing on the transformation of specific socio-technical systems and daily life practices, but with a tendency to overlook politics and power) positions.
• They do this with a "systems of provisions" approach — demonstrating how the different elements underpinning the political economy of car dependence are interlinked, allowing a holistic understanding of how car dependence perpetuates itself thru: the automotive industry, the provision of car infrastructure, the political economy of car-dependent land-use patterns, the provision of public transport, & cultures of consumption of the automobile
• They conclude that alternatives to car-dependent transport systems will have to be civic-minded, strategically coordinated for the public good, involving the overt redistribution of resources from profitable routes and areas to unprofitable ones through cross-subsidies. Such alternatives cannot benefit from a purported technocratic or apolitical presentation: instead, they should be argued for on the firm grounds of public coordination and delivery of public goods for all, while continually exposing the hidden workings of car-dependent transport systems.

<aside> 💡 This paper uses a ‘vertical’ analysis framework i.e. the "idea that consumption (needs) to be understood more closely in relation to its attachment to production." The logics underpinning supply of automobiles is crucial in how society reproduces itself (and how car dependency perpetuates itself).

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The problem

Decoupling human needs satisfaction from energy use in conditions of "carbon lock-in" ← How to do this, esp when transportation largely seen as "technical"/apolitical. Basically, transpo and car dependency isn't scrutinized under a production or political lens.

Increases in motorized transport use and related energy consumption may be necessary to achieve decent levels of need-satisfaction; The conundrum is between mitigating climate change and ensuring human well-being.

World regions are positioned differently with respect to how transport and car use contribute to human well being. In OECD countries, transport GHG emissions are high and must be radically reduced, but need-satisfaction has come to be dependent on (high levels of) car use. Car ownership and use can be an essential precondition for social inclusion in developed countries, notably in suburban and peri-urban areas which have been built on the assumption of near-universal car access.