IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/jotrge/v119y2024ics0966692324001662.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Drivers of transportation CO2 emissions and their changing patterns: Empirical results from 18 countries

Author

Listed:
  • Tao, Xuezong
  • Zhu, Lichao

Abstract

Transportation continues to be a significant contributor to CO2 emissions and may potentially be the final sector to reach its carbon peak in the future. Identifying the drivers of transportation CO2 emissions (TCE) and understanding their changing patterns is crucial to effectively control TCE. However, previous studies can only obtain fixed parameter values of TCE influencing factors throughout the study period, or although they can obtain the impacts of specific factors on TCE with accompanying changes over the years, they cannot conveniently clarify the changing patterns. Therefore, the key contribution of this study resides in providing a spatially explicit understanding of the heterogeneous primary drivers of TCE across countries, and in uncovering the temporal dynamics of these primary drivers' influences on TCE. The results show that at the country-group level (considering 18 selected countries as a group, collectively representing over 60% of global TCE), the drivers of TCE were GDP, energy intensity, and population in order of contribution. However, for developed countries, GDP and energy intensity contributed less to TCE than for developing countries. In addition, the influence of energy intensity on TCE declined faster than that of GDP, suggesting that decoupling TCE from economic growth should always be the top priority regardless of a country's development level. Policy-wise, for countries where GDP is the primary driver of TCE, measures to reduce transportation activities include industrial upgrading, coordinated planning, and accessibility promotion. For countries where energy intensity is the primary driver of TCE, measures to improve transportation efficiency consist of technology adoption, regulation/pricing, and habit improvement.

Suggested Citation

  • Tao, Xuezong & Zhu, Lichao, 2024. "Drivers of transportation CO2 emissions and their changing patterns: Empirical results from 18 countries," Journal of Transport Geography, Elsevier, vol. 119(C).
  • Handle: RePEc:eee:jotrge:v:119:y:2024:i:c:s0966692324001662
    DOI: 10.1016/j.jtrangeo.2024.103957
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0966692324001662
    Download Restriction: no

    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.jtrangeo.2024.103957?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:jotrge:v:119:y:2024:i:c:s0966692324001662. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.journals.elsevier.com/journal-of-transport-geography .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.