Addressing climate policy-making and gender in transport plans and strategies, The case of Oslo

This chapter considers gendered daily mobilities for climate policy-making. Travel behaviour is markedly different for women as it hinges on accessibility to local services and areas with a concentration of female employment. Questions like – Which transport modes are women using? What are its systematic benefits for climate policy-making? – demand further consideration both in current scenarios and in light of demographic trends like the elderly wave. Additionally, climate policy-making builds on the zero growth objective (ZGO) in urban Norway, stipulating that future traffic growth should be absorbed by public transport, walking, and cycling. Considering Oslo’s population growth, shifts in age distribution and combining it with empirical evidence on different demographic groups’ travel habits, this chapter investigates the overlaps between climate policy-making, gender, and ZGO. Analyses highlight that if current travel habits remain unchanged, almost 40,000 daily car trips will need to be substituted by 2040 in Oslo alone. Further, men and women will require different adoption growth rates for public transport, walking and cycling ridership to meet and maintain the ZGO. Deviations between gendered travel behaviour, willingness to substitute car, and an uneven population growth rate can pose challenges in achieving climate goals if not addressed through stratified interventions.