Traffic, its impacts and public attitudes - Transport Policy and Planning in Great Britain - page 55

700

600

500

400

Non-transport
sources

300

Transport
sources
(domestic)

200

100

0

Figure 3.11 CO 2 emissions from domestic transport and non transport sources UK 1980-2006

including transport's share of emissions from power stations and other fuel-processing
plants, this figure increases to 28%.)
In absolute terms the main contributors to transport's increase over the last decade
have been light vans (up by 4.2m tonnes) and HGVs (4.6m tonnes). Emissions from
cars peaked in 2002 and have since fallen back a little to the level of roughly a decade
ago (70m tonnes). Emissions from domestic air transport have doubled during the
decade but still only represent 2% of the transport total.
For comparison purposes CO 2 emissions arising from fuel supplied to international
aviation at UK airports have increased 3.5-fold since 1980 (to 35m tonnes). Together
with international shipping from UK ports these now represent a one-third addition to
the domestic transport total. However they lie outside the Kyoto Agreement.
Although transport is not required to contribute pro rata to overall CO 2 reduction
targets there are clearly grounds for concern that the trend in transport emissions is
incompatible with the Government's declared intention of moving towards an overall
60% reduction by 2050. We return to this issue in the context of the contemporary
policy agenda in Part 5.

3.9 Public attitudes
In this final section we review the available evidence about public attitudes to traffic
and transport-related issues viewed as a whole. This not only enables the perceived
condition and importance of the various issues to be compared; it also enables them to
be placed within a broader context of public concerns more generally.
However some important caveats need to be registered about this type of evidence.
Compared with many of the topics reported on previously, attitudinal research is more
subject to variations arising from the particular methodology employed. Apparent
discrepancies may therefore arise in results on particular topics where evidence
is drawn from different sources. In addition, even where the same source is being
used, fluctuations can occur over relatively short periods of time. This may reflect for
example the degree of attention an issue has received in the national media. In this