Climate Change & Transport
The transportation sector, is a massive emitter of greenhouse gases, and reducing emissions can be a huge challenge, especially when most scientists predict a big increase of transportation over the next 30 years. 2007 was remarkable in terms of global political attention to the problem of climate change. From Brazil to Netherlands, nobody had an idea about the importance of the issue. Fortunately, governments are starting to act, and a lot of action needs to be taken.
That is why the first session of the International Transport Forum, in Leipzig (Germany) from 28 to 30 May 2008, focused on "Transport and Energy: The Challenge of Climate Change". This new platform offers, to the private and public sector, help about their options, to develop national and international strategies and measurement to help achieve, reducing global emissions by 50% over the next 50 years. In fact, without improvement in the transportation sector, this objective will be very difficult to achieve. For example, experimentation of alternative fuels and driver behavior, new ideas and data on possible options, their benefits and their respective costs can be found. The Forum is an ideal place to formulate ambitious and responsible policies for the future of the transportation sector. But actions have to be taken and there’s a long way ahead of us to achieve sustainability in the sector of transport.
Different types of transport
The transportation is very wide, between a scooter and an airplane we have a lot of categories and transportation systems. The biggest, in term of number, is cars counting 957 million all over the world, as well as for total emission. Then, the winner of the award of emissions per unit is freight boats, only one can emit as much sulphur as 50 million cars on a year time. Air transportation plays also a big role in emissions and they are going to increase in the next decades. For example, in 2014, 36.8 million flights were registered, one flight every 1.16 secondes. If we consider that, an A350, for example, consume 6 tons of fuel per hour, we can imagine how big the emissions from planes were this year. The consumption of electric cars is also polluting, even if governments and car constructors communicate a lot about the “benefits” of them. On average, if you want to pollute less with an electric car than a regular one, you have to use it between 15 and 18 years without changing the battery, which is impossible.
Ellen Emeric, a sociologist working on climate change, explains how public transport, in addition to decreasing inequalities, can be the answer to reduce climate change as well.
They represent a solution to divide costs and, of course, spending in energy by tens of passengers that are traveling in the bus or train or even cars. The sociologist thinks that with a planning of the city and a good use of infrastructures, people will increase their use of public transport and by doing so decrease their impact on environment.
Transportation problem nowadays
The problem about transport nowadays is that a lot of emissions are related to this sector. According to studies, transport is responsible for 21%-28% of greenhouse gas emissions. Approximately the same as energy production, which is part of the transportation process because most engines can only run on petrol. But this is only a part of the problem, vehicles and transportation in general would grow by 30% before 2050, and if improvements are not sufficient, emissions will grow by thousands of tons. Another issue is the behavior people have with transportation. If a person has to travel a 1000 meters, many take their car instead of using their bike, or walk. Many people like to take the easy road, so the real problem is education and awareness. Once people know the impact of their actions, they hopefully understand the use of cars.
Effects on the climate
As other emitter of greenhouse gas, transport contributes to the global warming of the planet, and all the consequences linked to it, but we must add the destruction of ecosystems to build roads, or rails for trains and the noise pollution. For maritime freight transport, effects are even worse than cars or planes because the pollution is directly absorbed by the sea and the transformation process of carbon dioxide to oxygen is slowed down in addition to emissions made by boats in the atmosphere.
Effect of the global warming of the planet
Global warming is due to climate change and so far the impacts have only been bad. For example, the rising of the sea level, the extinction of species or warming of oceans. With these greenhouse gases emitted by human activities, transportation represents a big part of this.
Destruction of ecosystems
The destruction of ecosystems is a big issue for rails and roads. Sometimes, if a highway crosses a little cute village, it can destroy this image of refreshing place. Now imagine every small ecosystem as a cute village for animals, destroyed by humans and roads. Imagine the number of trees cut to build a road in a mountain, even a mountain cut for the building of a railway. The damage done by the use of cars is huge but we don’t realize the disaster, in terms of natural preservation, that roads represent. For example in the south of France, a species of frog almost disappeared because of a road. It was impossible for them to cross this highway to go to lay in the lakes on the other side of the road. Fortunately, the town built a tunnel for the frog, just to help them crossing it.
Noise pollution
The consequences of noise pollution on ecosystems and animal species are varied and can range from depopulation, migration to a rise of mortality. Indeed, noise is often an ecological barrier, immaterial, but it creates areas unfit for life for many species or areas simply unfavorable to the circulation or the reproduction of species. For example, studies in Great Britain along highways have shown a gradual disappearance of songbirds in a band of about 2-4 km.
Tired by used tires?
Even if they don’t contribute directly to climate change by the use, the pollution generated by the production of tires is insane. Only in Europe 200 million tires are used every year and this product is totally non-recyclable. We don’t know what to do with tires and we don’t know how to replace it as well. Americans tried to help fishes and corals by constructing barriers of tires in the Pacific ocean and protect sea life with it. The result was even worse than before, the only thing they created were dead zones in the ocean and more pollution due to actions to take off tires from the sea.
SOLUTIONS
What are the things happening nowadays to help reduce emissions from transportation. And what can you do to help?
What is required to move a human from point A to point B on foot, bike, car, train? Bike Engineer Zach Krapfl looks at the environmental footprint of many methods of modern transportation and finds some surprising answers to this question, along with big opportunities for change. Your efficiency can be multiplied by more than 50 if you try Zack Krapfl’s solutions. So let’s try!
Actions already taken
One of the existing actions is a mobility plan, which is a plan made for companies by the states to help people reduce their impact if they don’t know how. Mobility plans or business travel plans help to reflect on the travel and transport it generates and to implement solutions that reduce energy consumption.
The mobility plan concerns the different types of travel:
Commuting to work of employees
Travel within the scope of work
Business trips
The movements of suppliers and visitors
The transport of goods.
This type of plan is usually made for companies, but households start to implement it as well. For example instead of having two cars for a couple who works approximately in the same area, they can only use one and share their way. They can also share it with their neighbors or friends which will reduce carbon emissions as well.
Companies and households should share their cars to reduce emissions, but the best way to achieve it it is still by using public transports, a bike or walking. And even if sometimes you have to use your car, favor these solution for short trips.
The development of a real alternative to fossil fuels is perhaps the greatest technological challenge faced by humanity at present. Now, researchers at CRANN, the Nanoscience Institute based at Trinity College Dublin have developed a material which enhances the splitting of water at a very low energy cost using earth abundant raw materials.
Is the hydrogen car the car of the future?
Hydrogen car: Hydrogen cars are considered for a lot of people as the car of the future. A hydrogen vehicle is a vehicle that uses hydrogen as its onboard fuel for motive power. Hydrogen vehicles include hydrogen-fueled space rockets, as well as automobiles and other transportation vehicles. The power plants of such vehicles convert the chemical energy of hydrogen to mechanical energy either by burning hydrogen in an internal combustion engine, or, more commonly, by reacting hydrogen with oxygen in a fuel cell to run electric motors. Widespread use of hydrogen for fueling transportation is a key element of a proposed hydrogen economy.
What is also interesting is the re-development of fuel cells, check out this talk of Dr. Yushan Yan to learn more about this interesting technology.
Dr. Yushan Yan is a world-renowned researcher known for his work using nanomaterials to solve problems in energy engineering, environmental sustainability and electronics. His work is widely cited in the scientific community, and his research has been extensively covered by media and technical magazines.
What are the things you implement in order to improve transport? Let us know by tagging us with #theconsciouschallenge
» Want to contribute to our Ecological Footprint Bible? Submit us your scientific articles! Mail us at info@theconsciouschallenge.org
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