Geoscience Reference
In-Depth Information
Transport
One of the greatest challenges to mitigating GHG emissions is transport. At the moment,
transport accounts for 13 per cent of GHG emissions globally. In the UK, the carbon emis-
sions from energy production, business, and residential sectors are all going down despite
annual growth in the economy; but even the UK government admits that transport emis-
sions, mainly from cars, are growing at a formidable rate. Car growth over the next 20
years could wipe out all the cuts in carbon emissions made by the UK since 1990. If we ex-
trapolate this to the rest of the world, we have everyone in the developing world aspiring to
have the same standard of living as the West, and that includes at least one car per house-
hold and regular holidays by aeroplane.
In respect to cars, there are two possible solutions—biofuels and electricity. Biofuels have
been discussed earlier, and mean that the current infrastructure of providing liquid fuel to
cars could be maintained. But as we have seen, biofuels must be carefully produced as they
can compete for land-use with food production, can result in tropical deforestation, and can
still be net emitters of carbon due to transport and production costs. Ultimately, electric
cars are the future, because it can be guaranteed that the electricity produced is carbon-
neutral. At the moment, we already have hybrid cars, which combine a petrol engine with a
battery system. Porsche and McLaren have already produced the world's first hybrid super-
cars as the electric engine can generate much more torque producing 0 to 60 miles per hour
in 2.5 and 2.8 seconds, respectively. For normal cars a hybrid system can improve engine
efficiency and cut carbon emissions by an average of 50 per cent. It would be an important
step forward if all new cars produced had to have this type of system. The next step would
be to move to completely electric cars. This would require continual improvement in bat-
tery life and the building of infrastructure to allow cars to charge up—just as you charge up
your mobile phone at home. In the long-term vision of the UK Climate Change Committee,
the first step is to completely decarbonize electricity generation in the UK and then to in-
crease production significantly to ensure the ground transport systems, cars, buses, and
trains, are then 100 per cent electric (see Figure 36 ).
Aeroplanes have become an easy target for climate change campaigners as international
flights have never been covered by an international treaty. The EU through the Emissions
Trading Scheme did try to include emissions from commercial aviation emissions but this
is now being fought in the international courts. At the moment, just 1.6 per cent of global
emissions come from aviation. Research is being carried out to see whether a biofuel can
be produced that is light enough and powerful enough to replace the traditional air fuel ker-
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