Press release: Combined Transport delivers Paris Agreement aims 10/03/21

Zero-Carbon Combined Transport is when electric trucks deliver the containers to electrically powered transhipment terminals and the cargo is then loaded onto electric freight trains.  This is the only existing transport solution capable of turning renewable electricity directly into high volume freight transport performance on an industrial scale.

Today U.S. Special Presidential Envoy on Climate, Mr John Kerry, meets with Commission Vice-President, Mr Frans Timmermans. Their discussion will take place prior to attending the College of Commissioners meeting to exchange views on Transatlantic collaboration on climate change, as the USA recently rejoined the COP21 Paris Agreement. Zero-Carbon Combined Transport should feature prominently on their agenda.

Containerisation was the enabler of the explosive growth of transcontinental trade after 1945.  Most of the containerized cargo that arrives in seaports needs to be carried onwards to its final destinations in the hinterland.  This is done by intermodal transport in both North America and in Europe.

Freight trains provide the highly energy efficient beginning and end to the cargo consolidation that takes place at seaports, where the 20.000 TEU or even larger giga-vessels are filled for the ocean part of the journey.

The necessary substantial increase of Combined Transport in Europe during the coming decades requires a dramatic improvement in the number and the quality of train paths available for freight trains on the railway infrastructure. Electrified European railways, when combined with electrically powered transhipment techniques, enable Combined Transport to provide a zero-carbon transport solution already today.  As soon as the short road legs to and from the terminals will be performed by battery powered trucks, Combined Transport will offer an end-to-end zero-carbon transport solution.

Combined Transport can offer a door-to-door zero-carbon connection on rail-based Europe-Asia transcontinental transport chains.  With the rapid development of the rail infrastructure in Africa, especially if the Gibraltar Tunnel¹ would be built, the same can become a reality in the relations to/from the African continent too.

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¹ https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/20210113-uk-and-morocco-consider-gibraltar-tangier-tunnel/

“UIRR’s American sister association, the Intermodal Association of North America, IANA, brings together the actors who can deliver zero-carbon Combined Transport in the USA, while UIRR does the same in Europe.  By exchanging best practice solutions with IANA, UIRR can facilitate the delivery of zero-carbon transport-chains needed in a carbon-neutral world well before the 2050 deadline.”  - pointed out UIRR President Ralf-Charley Schultze.