Economic impacts of low-carbon transport strategies for Jordan

Greenhouse gas emissions in Jordan come primarily from the combustion of refined oil products in transport. Hence, plans to reduce emissions focus primarily on the transport sector. These plans, often detailed from a technological point of view, seldom present reasoned economic measures of likely consequences. This paper provides an assessment of the likely economic costs and benefits for Jordan of two typical schemes to reduce the environmental effects of transport. Both relate to the delivery of passenger services. The first is to encourage the uptake of Battery Electric Vehicles (BEVs) at the expense of Internal Combustion Vehicles (ICVs) and, to a lesser extent, hybrid vehicles. The second is to invest in new public transport infrastructure -- phase 2 of the Bus Rapid Transport system -- assisting to reduce the use of private vehicles principally in urban areas. The analysis is based on scenarios to 2050 constructed using a large model of Jordan's economy, named JorGE. JorGE is calibrated to data for 2020 and has a detailed industrial classification. That classification recognizes electricity produced by several different conventional fossil fuel and renewable technologies and a number of road transport service industries. The road transport industries distinguish passenger from freight services. For passenger services there are separate industries producing public transport services and private transport services. The latter is further disaggregated into services provided by the three different passenger vehicle types -- ICVs, EVs and Hybrids.