Uploaded on 2017-03-06 by Zanda Apīne

1. What are the dominant fossil fuels used in your country? The dominant fossil fuels used in Latvia is Oil products, 2369 out of total imported 6167ktoe. Although 834 ktoe going to export, so the net volume oil products used in Latvia is 1535ktoe. 2. Where are the dominant fossil fuels mainly used for in your country? The biggest part – 952ktoe (out of 1868ktoe total) of oil products is used in transport. This number is so big because alternative energy transport is not yet very popular in Latvia and there are a big place for improvement for public transportation too. 3. It is your task to create a new policy in order to improve the environmental friendly and sustainable sources and consumption of energy of your country. How would you do that? Think of how you can improve the sources and the consumption of energy. If it would be up to me, I would defenately improve electrical transportation in Latvia. The main problem why there are not so many as we could wish, in my opinion is, of course, the price of electrical vehicles and also infrastructure. At the moment there is hardly any place for charging this kind of cars, in capital city, Riga, there are not more than 3-5 public places where to charge, in other regions, there are only two more cities in whole country, where are one charging point in each. So even if you buy nature friendly car, you can’t drive too far. That’s why my biggest improvement would be this charging point network all around the country, at least 1 in every average size city. At the moment in Riga, there are some benefits for electrical drivers – you can use parking spaces in city center for free, you can use public transport lines on the street, it’s convenient and really motivates people to buy a car like that for everyday use in city. We need to keep it up this way and stimulate people to think green. Also I would improve public transportation system in Riga and also regional. In my opinion, there is possibility to change old buses to new more efficient ones and also make some new public transport lines to make it more convenient for use to inhabitants. The more people will use public transport, the less cars will be in our cities, also less oil products will be used. I would suggest to make a discount for riding in public transport before and after rush hours. For example, if the biggest traffic jam at the moment is at 8:30 am, then make a 50% discount to public transportation from 7:30 to 8:00 am, so that reduce those big traffic jams and pollution that it’s causing. But one can’t change the whole situation in country, that’s why, if thinking realistically, first of all, we need to educate the government and make them understand why it’s so important to reduce oil products consumption, traffic jams and pollution.