FSR

In this first episode of FSR Transport’s new podcast series ‘Transport 4 Future’ host Prof. Juan Montero speaks with Bertil Hylén, Scientific Advisor of FSR Transport about EU railway regulation and policy in relation to passenger rail services. Having closely witnessed the reform of EU railway acquis over the past 30 years, Bertil reflects on the factors behind the limited progress achieved in many Member States and shares his take on the possible ways forward. What are the necessary preconditions for the completion of the reform process in the rail sector? Has public financing been conducive of efficiency in terms of targeting the necessary rail services? Can international cross-border rail services play a greater role in Europe and should the EU be supporting their development? What about night train services? Can Rail Freight Corridors effectively boost the share of international rail freight services or is there a need for a greater degree of EU coordination? Can complex cross-border services be tendered as regular public service obligations? Is it possible to coordinate tenders across different Member States?

In this episode of the ‘On The Move’ series Teodora Serafimova, Research Associate at the Transport Area of the Florence School of Regulation, is joined by Delphine Grandsart, Senior Researcher at the European Passengers’ Federation, an international non-profit association representing Europe’s major passenger organisations and the interests of travellers at the EU level.

What is the most desired instrument to curb emissions from road transport? What is the sort of information passengers should be provided with to induce them to opt for journeys with lower environmental footprints? What is the best way to facilitate the provision of such information to passengers, while avoiding greenwashing? What are some of the main hurdles in the way to establishing a common multimodal framework for ticketing and passenger rights? How can MaaS benefit passengers, and how has COVID-19 affected its future development? Are the current Commission guidelines for State aid in the aviation sector fit-for-purpose? What should be the guiding principles and criteria behind the allocation of State aid in the aviation sector?

Tune in to this podcast for some insightful reflections on these questions from the passengers’ standpoint!

On 15 December 2021 at 6th AIEE Energy Symposium, the FSR Director, Jean-Michel Glachant gave a presentation from the title “Towards flexible energy systems on the demand side: Markets & Regulation”.

Professor Glachant has been elected President-elect 2022 of the International Association for Energy Economics (IAEE) to start from January 2022.

To learn more about IAEE: https://www.iaee.org/

In this episode of the On The Right Track podcast series, host Juan Montero, Part-time Professor at the Transport Area of the Florence School of Regulation, is joined by Veronika Haunold, European and International Affairs Manager at the Austrian Federal Railways ÖBB, in discussing the role of railways in driving the decarbonisation of the transport sector.

What can railways do to support transport decarbonisation? What are the necessary measures to support the Commission’s modal shift objectives in relation to passenger rail? How can we meet passengers’ need for intermodal door-to-door connectivity? How can digitalisation boost multimodality? What is ÖBB doing in respect to night train services? What are the main obstacles to modal shift in freight transport? How can digital tools help to resolve these? Are railways “green” enough? Listen to their full conversation to get the answers to these questions

In this 5th episode of the ‘On The Move’ series Teodora Serafimova, Research Associate at the Transport Area of the Florence School of Regulation, speaks with Mitra Qurban, Director for Public Policy and EU Affairs at Deutsche Post DHL (DPDHL), the world’s largest logistics company.

DHL Group recently announced plans to accelerate the pace of its decarbonisation to achieve climate-neutral logistics by the year 2030. In the episode, Mitra elaborates on the concrete measures DPDHL is implementing to reduce the footprint of its operations in line with the objectives of the European Green Deal.

How does the company ensure that its operations, which are being outsourced to third-party providers, meet minimal environmental quality standards? What are the main challenges to establishing a common framework for the harmonised measurement of transport and logistics-related greenhouse gas emissions? Does the Commission’s ReFuelEU Aviation proposal suffice to scale up the production of zero-emission sustainable aviation fuels and place aviation on a path to climate neutrality? What are the main obstacles to moving goods away from road transport onto cleaner modes like railways and boosting the share of sustainable multimodal transport in Europe? How can the upcoming revision of the Combined Transport Directive help overcome these? Tune in to their conversation and get the answers to these questions!

Read the main conclusions of the 8th Florence Intermodal Forum on the Greening of European Cargo Operations here: https://cadmus.eui.eu/handle/1814/72264

With the European Year of Rail being halfway through, host Juan Montero, Part-time Professor at the Transport Area of the Florence School of Regulation is joined by François Davenne, Director General of the International Union of Railways (UIC), as they take stock of progress achieved to date. What is the role of technology in increasing the modal share of rail in the passenger segment? What is UIC doing in terms of using technology to facilitate better interaction between the different industry players? Can technology improve the reliability of cross-border rail freight services and thereby help to boost the modal share of rail freight? Is the current regulatory framework conducive towards more efficient cross-border services, or will a stronger EU involvement in cross-border traffic management be necessary? Is the recent revival of night train services in Europe here to stay? Tune in to their conversation to learn more.

This is a podcast about the replicability of the project LIFE DICET in other policy areas. It focuses on the development of a new mechanism of the Paris Agreement called internationally transferred mitigation outcomes (ITMOs).

In the podcast, Albert Ferrari from FSR Climate converses with Suzi Kerr about the replication and extension of LIFE DICET to foster cooperative approaches around ITMOs and the creation of climate teams. Suzi, Chief Economist of the Environmental Defense Fund, is an active member of the LIFE DICET Core Expert Group. She leads the project Climate Teams that aims to set up a new mechanism for international climate cooperation.

The project LIFE DICET is co-financed by the EU LIFE Programme. It aims to support the EU and the Member States in international cooperation to develop and integrate carbon markets with five other ETS regulators, namely China, California, Québec, New Zealand and Switzerland.

More info:

https://lifedicetproject.eui.eu/

https://climateteams.org/

In this podcast, Professors Kim Talus (Universities of Tulane, Eastern Finland and Helsinki), Dirk Buschle (Energy Community Secretariat, College of Europe), and Leigh Hancher (FSR, Tilburg University, and Baker Botts LLP) discuss the impact that the CJEU's recent recognition of energy solidarity as a justiciable principle of EU law will have on the future of EU energy law and policy.

This podcast episode discusses the European Commission’s State aid decision to open a formal investigation procedure with regards to the German lignite phase-out plans, which were passed with the coal phase-out law of 2020. The episode highlights the doubts expressed by the Commission in its opening decision and also touches upon possible additional doubts on some of the other assessment criteria that will have to be addressed by the Commission’s formal investigation. The podcast also touches upon the new section in the Commission’s draft Climate, Environmental and Energy Aid Guidelines, on aid for the early closure of coal plants and its provisions on compensation for such closure.

This podcast from the Gas and Climate area of the Florence School of Regulation is part of the series "IAEE online conference: Energy, Covid, and Climate Change". In this instalment, James Kneebone of FSR is joined by Marina Holgado of the International Energy Agency (IEA) technical collaboration programme (TCP) secretariat for hydrogen.

The podcast explores the outcomes of the IAEE online conference session 'Power-to-Hydrogen and Hydrogen-to-X' as well as the wider work of the TCP, through the following questions:

- What is the Hydrogen TCP and more specifically 'Task 38'? What can our viewers learn from Task 38 results?

- One of the main conclusions in Task 38 was that hydrogen was not being well represented in energy modelling scenarios, in your view, why was that? Has this changed?