Assalamualaikum readers :)
This post gives an overview of the main trends in the environmental impacts of the transport sector as a whole, and road and rail freight transport in particular.
The trends in energy use from transport over the last decades are depicted. Energy consumption in transport almost doubled over this period. The growth in non-OECD countries was even higher: energy use almost tripled over this period. Both for OECD and non-OECD countries, road transport had by far the largest share: about three quarters, and this share is steadily increasing. Projections for energy use until 2050 are shown in Figure 8.2. This graph shows that the energy use of transport is expected to keep on growing at a similar rate as in the last decades, doubling between 2000 and 2040. The growth rates in road freight transport and
rail transport are roughly the same as these general growth rates. Just as happened in the past decades, the energy use of the transport sector is expected to grow much faster in non-OECD countries than in OECD countries. Where non-OECD countries currently account for about 36% of the worldwide transport-related CO2 emissions, their share is expected to equal that of the OECD countries somewhere around 2040. Particularly in Asia and Latin America, energy use of transport is expected to grow strongly.
Figure A
As shown in Figure A, the expected growth is highest in China, where road energy consumption is expected to grow by a factor of five between 2000 and 2030 (He et al., 2005). In China, freight transport has grown much faster than passenger transport (almost twice as fast) and is expected to do so in the future. The energy use of heavy duty trucks in China tripled between 1997 and 2002 (He et al., 2005).
This trend makes clear that reducing energy consumption of transport, and the related greenhouse gas emissions, is becoming more and more a global challenge.
