This may be a good reason to ask for more paid holidays or the four-day week: to “travel low carbon”, the think tank The Shift Project recommends going by train and extending the duration of stays.

A few days after the publication of the latest IPCC report, which provides solutions to limit global warming, this plan therefore focuses on the theme of holidays and transport.

When they travel, the French cover 42% of the distances by plane, 43% by car, and 10% by train.

And long trips (more than 900 kilometers from home) increased sharply between 2008 and 2019, mainly thanks to the plane.

However, "in order to contribute, like all sectors, to the objective of carbon neutrality (in 2050), long-distance mobility must reduce its greenhouse gas emissions at an annual rate of 5% per year", point out the authors of the report.

Long-distance mobility must therefore be electrified, and air traffic “gradually decrease”.

Triple the share of train travel

The Shift Project proposes a “gradual limitation of long-haul flights”, by limiting slots or increasing taxation, while taking into account “the issues specific to overseas departments and regions”.

Alternative offers to intercontinental air travel must therefore "make much slower travel, stays that last longer, and closer, intra-European destinations attractive", according to this report of nearly 200 pages intended for citizens but also tourism and mobility stakeholders, and led by Béatrice Jarrige, consultant and former chief economist at SNCF.

To replace the plane, the plan provides in particular to triple the share of the train in these long journeys.

But it will be necessary to invest in rail at French and European level so that the offer is varied (regional, high-speed, night, long-distance trains), international and accessible to all, with a reduction in VAT.

The implementation of this "long distance" component of the overall plan for the transformation of the French economy (PTEF), supported by the NGO, leads to a division by more than two of jobs in the air sector (-38,000 full-time equivalents ), but a doubling of the need in the rail sector (+37,000 FTE).

A real paradigm shift.

Finally, the “electric, small, light, not very powerful and economical” car will only be “complementary to train travel” and often rented, if you cannot ride a bicycle.

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