Australia needs to rapidly adopt electric vehicles, but they aren't the key to slashing transport emissions, a study says.
The country's reliance on private vehicles needs to drop by more than half for the country to play its part in slashing global emissions by 2030, according a report released by the Climate Council today.
Eighty-one per cent of trips are made in private vehicles across Australia, but the report says that would need to drop to 36 per cent by the end of the decade.
"If we are to reduce emissions from personal transport really deeply this decade, we need to flip how our transport system works from one that is about moving around cars to one that really prioritises moving around people," Climate Council head of advocacy Jennifer Rayner said.
The federal government is aiming to reduce emissions by 43 per cent, based on 2005 levels, by 2030.
But the Climate Council recommends the nation should aim to reduce emissions by 75 per cent and reach be net zero by 2035 in order for Australia to play its part in reducing global emissions.
Dr Rayner said if that goal were to be achieved commuters would need to use a range of different transport modes, with a greater reliance on public and active transport.
That would mean 49 per cent of trips would have to occur on public transport and 15 per cent through active transit.
Private vehicles would account for the remaining 36 per cent.
"That means about halving the amount of trips that are made by car every day, and seeing a three-and-a-half-fold increase in trips by public transport and a threefold increase of active transport, like walking cycling or skating," Dr Rayner said.
"At the moment the average Australian household has two petrol cars in the garage.
"Our vision in the future is that one of those be replaced by an EV, and the other one could be substituted altogether by a mix of trips using active and public transport, like walking, riding and rolling."
'A snowflake's hope in hell'
Public transport usage sits at about 14 per cent nationally, but that figure is much lower in regional areas.
In cities as built-up as the Gold Coast, public transport usage rates are just higher around three per cent, despite ambitious targets increase public transport rates.
Dr Rayner said Climate Council surveys suggested people wanted more public transport, but services were not up to scratch.
She said one of the easier solutions would be to increase reliable electric bus services rather than working on larger infrastructure projects.
"They can be rolled out a lot more quickly and a lot more easily than the really big-scale rail infrastructure that governments often like to prioritise," Dr Rayner said.
Transport expert Matthew Burke said Australia does not have the network available for such an increase in public transport.
"We haven't got a snowflake's hope in hell of tripling public transport use," he said.
"Most of the trips that people do in suburbia are simply not supported by the current public transport networks that we have."
But Dr Burke said the active transport goal was within reach.
"That's very achievable," he said.
"It's been done in other jurisdictions, including in US cities that look a lot like ourselves — that's not difficult."
Dr Burke added that the change would not require federal leadership.
He said dropping speed limits to 30 kilometres per hour on some roads would be a step towards encouraging cyclists and pedestrians to use roads and footpaths more often.
"[Commuters] are legitimately frightened," he said.
"It's a higher stress environment."
