Environmental effects of transport use
Emissions
It is estimated that road traffic is responsible for 21% of the UK 's total carbon emissions (Low Carbon Economy.com) or 85 billion tonnes.
Burning fossil fuels releases CO2 and other greenhouse gases, which contribute to climate change as well as other harmful phenomena such as smog, and damage human health contributing to asthma and other respiratory diseases.
Air transport emissions in the UK continue to grow. While CO2 and other greenhouse gases are emitted just as with burning any fossil fuel, the effect of these emissions are worse at high altitudes due to “radiative forcing effect”. Aviation emissions are not restricted to just carbon and GHGs, but also include soot and contrails. The combination of factors plus the fact that the emissions are released at higher altitude magnifies the warming effect beyond the effect of carbon dioxide alone. Radiative forcing increases the effect of aviation emissions to somewhere between 1.2 and 4 times the effect of the same amount of greenhouse gas being released at ground level (Act On CO2's carbon calculator uses a figure of 1.9 times).
Depletion of resources
Transport uses the majority of oil extracted worldwide, and oil is a resource that is fast running out. According to the BP Statistical Review of World Energy 2009 (Download, 5.15 MB) proven oil reserves (excluding oil extracted from Canadian Tar Sands) will only last 44 years based on current levels of consumption.
For the UK access to these reserves of oil is limited – most are located in other countries – meaning that supplies could easily be cut off.
Congestion / Slow Travel Times
The number of cars and vehicles on the UK 's roads is estimated to be around . With this number of vehicles, roads are often full to capacity, particularly at peak times. For any organisation, staff stuck in traffic jams are unproductive. Slow travel times means that meetings and events can be missed, further affecting productivity.
For flights, additional airport security and prescriptive airline check in times, mean that long periods of productive time can also be wasted. For the case of some internal UK flights, although the actual travelling time for flying may be shorter, the total time including travel to and from airports can be longer than travelling by rail or road.
Accidents
Although the majority of journeys are safe and the UK does have a falling rate of road traffic accidents, road transport can be dangerous. 2538 people were killed on British roads in 2008 (source Department for Transport).
Biodiversity loss
Biodiversity can be affected by transport in two ways.
Road building causes habitat loss – even fairly minor changes to road layouts, or widths can cause damage to local biodiversity by taking up valuable ‘green spaces'. For motorways and major roads, this can be even more extreme, taking large areas of land creating even greater habitat loss, and fragmenting existing habitats.
Estimates of the number of animals killed by road traffic vary widely. However, anyone who has ever spent any time travelling on UK roads will have noticed the level of road kill, in some areas this can have a devastating impact on species populations – not to mention the damage that can be caused to vehicles.
