The climate value of cycling

Abstract

The reduction of CO 2 emissions constitutes one of the largest challenges of the current era. Sustainable transportation, and especially cycling, can contribute to the mitigation of CO 2 emissions since cycling possesses an intrinsic zero‐emission value. Few studies have been conducted that appraise the CO 2 reduction potential of cycling. Opportunity costs enable the estimation of avoided CO 2 emissions resulting from bicycle trips. The methodology developed in this research allows the attribution of a climate value to cycling by substituting bicycle trips with their most likely alternative transportation modes and calculating the resulting additional CO 2 emissions. The methodology uses data on the current modal shares of cycling mobility, the competition of cycling with other transportation modes, and CO 2 emission factors to calculate the climate value of cycling. When it is assumed that the avoided CO 2 emissions of cycling mobility could be traded on financial carbon markets, the climate value of cycling represents a monetary value. Application of the methodology to the case of Bogota, Colombia — a city with a current bicycle modal share of 3.3% on a total of 10 million daily trips — results in a climate value of cycling of 55,115 tons of CO 2 per year, corresponding to an economic value of between 1 and 7 million US dollars when traded on the carbon market.