Title photo: Nissan Leaf battery compartment

In 2023, 24% of all carbon dioxide emissions came from transport and 74.5% of that comes from road transport. Looking at Figure 1 simply enhances my already acute feelings of guilt. I've tried to calculate the number of miles I've driven, flown, trained, ferried in my forty-five adult years and was horrified to discover that I've circled the Earth multiple times. That's not something I'm proud of given the carbon emissions data in Fig. 2

Figure 1

Figure 2

You might have trouble distinguishing between domestic, short haul and long haul flights. London Heathrow to Edinburgh = domestic (530km); London to Berlin (900km) = short haul; London to New York (5,500km) = long haul. (Apologies if that was obvious.)

Cutting carbon emissions in the transport sector is one of the toughest climate change challenges we face. But it must be done and fast. In 2020, 64% of global oil production was consumed by transport. Click on the links below to discover the current progress in electrification of different types of transport.

Title photo by Bengt Oberger - Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0,