Climate and traffic : prospects for Finland

http://www.elsevier.com/locate/issn/09593780The paper contributes a ‘soft’ way of making scenarios for climate policy that takes into account the diverse views of various interest groups. A two-rounded Delphi method is used to produce scenarios for a transport CO2 policy for Finland. Quantitative statements of the interest groups are run with cluster analysis and qualitative arguments for the statements are attached to the clusters. The resulting six clusters are interpreted in the light of theoretical strategic scenarios of transport and environment, which take different positions on dematerialisation and immaterialisation. Although one could observe only little dematerialisation and no immaterialisation in the relationships between GDP, road traffic volume and CO2 emissions from road traffic in Finland from 1970– 1996, all of the clusters anticipate dematerialisation and five, immaterialisation during 1997–2025