RIS2 Roads & Carbon – Transport Action Network

Building new roads increases traffic, leading to more carbon emissions. The Government claims new roads will not significantly increase emissions so we decided to find out using their own data.  We used Freedom of Information laws to ask Highways England for the carbon impact of its 50 RIS2 schemes. So far we have data for 45 out of the 50 listed schemes, which reveals that Highways England estimates the extra traffic will lead to almost 32 million tonnes of extra carbon emissions, whilst construction adds another 4 million tonnes.