Global emissions of CO2 from transport

Global emissions of CO2 from transport

Subject – Environment

Context – Six large automobile makers and 31 countries on Wednesday pledged to work towards ending the sale of new petrol and diesel vehicles by 2040, and five years sooner in the world’s “leading markets” for their vehicles.

Concept –

• Six large automobile makers and 31 countries pledged to work towards ending the sale of new petrol and diesel vehicles by 2040, and five years sooner in the world’s “leading markets” for their vehicles.
• Governments of three of the world’s biggest automobile markets, the United States, China, and Japan, abstained from taking the pledge.
• But India — the fourth-largest auto market in the world — joined the coalition, which includes the United Kingdom, Canada, the Netherlands, Norway, Poland, and Sweden.
• The pledge is not legally binding.

• As of 2018, the latest year for which a reliable assessment is widely available, road travel — including both passenger and freight vehicles — accounted for almost three-quarters of the world’s transport emissions.
  • Passenger vehicles — cars and buses — accounted for the larger part of road travel emissions, and 45.1% of total CO2 emissions from transport.
• Since the entire transport sector accounted for a little more than a fifth of total CO2 emissions, and road transport accounted for three-quarters of transport emissions, road transport accounted for 15% of total global CO2 emissions.

India to work towards zero-emission cars by 2040

• India has joined over 30 other countries in signing a declaration that promises to work towards ensuring that only zero-emission cars and vans are sold by the year 2040.
• However, this timeline is meant mainly for the developed country signatories, and is not a legally-binding commitment.
• Emerging markets like India have only promised to work “intensely towards accelerated proliferation and adoption of zero-emission vehicles”.
• Road transport accounts for about 10 per cent of global greenhouse gas emissions, and significant reductions from this sector is considered essential to meeting the goal of keeping global temperature rise within 2 degrees Celsius from pre-industrial levels.
• At the initiative of the UK government, the COP26 host, India has also joined a Zero Emission Vehicle Transition Council that will discuss ways to accelerate the push towards early adoption of zero-emission vehicles.

India’s target –

• A few years earlier, India had announced that it planned a 100 per cent transition to electric vehicles by the year 2032.
• Considered an impossible task, the target has since been modified — 30 per cent of all passenger cars and 70 per cent of commercial vehicles are now supposed to become electric by 2030.