Driving Factors behind Energy-Related Carbon Emissions in the U.S. Road Transport Sector: A Decomposition Analysis.

Rui Jiang,Peng Wu,Chengke Wu

doi:10.3390/ijerph19042321

Abstract

The U.S. is the second largest contributor to carbon emissions in the world, with its road transport sector being one of the most significant emission sources. However, few studies have been conducted on factors influencing the emissions changes for the U.S. from the perspective of passenger and freight transport. This study aimed to evaluate the carbon emissions from the U.S. road passenger and freight transport sectors, using a Logarithmic Mean Divisia Index approach. Emissions from 2008 to 2017 in the U.S. road transport sector were analysed and key findings include: (1) energy intensity and passenger transport intensity are critical for reducing emissions from road passenger transport, and transport structure change is causing a shift in emissions between different passenger transport modes; and (2) the most effective strategies to reduce carbon emissions in the road freight transport sector are to improve energy intensity and reduce freight transport intensity. Several policy recommendations regarding reducing energy and transport intensity are proposed. The results and policy recommendations are expected to provide useful references for policy makers to form carbon emissions reduction strategies for the road transport sector.

Highlights

Under the Paris Agreement, the U.S government has committed to a 26–28% reduction target relative to 2005 emissions by 2025, and this target was updated to a 50–52% reduction in 2030 by President Biden in April 2021 [1,2]
The contribution of this study is two-fold: (1) this study identifies factors driving the changes in CO2 emissions of the separate road passenger and freight transport sectors for the U.S, which are not revealed in existing studies; and (2) the policy recommendations proposed based on the findings of this study may provide solid references for policy makers and can be widely applied to other countries
This study evaluated the energy-related CO2 emissions of the U.S road transport sector and decomposed these emissions to identify the factors that caused the changes in the emissions from 2008 to 2017

Summary

Introduction

Under the Paris Agreement, the U.S government has committed to a 26–28% reduction target relative to 2005 emissions by 2025, and this target was updated to a 50–52% reduction in 2030 by President Biden in April 2021 [1,2]. The U.S transport sector is one of the largest sources of energy consumption and greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions [3]. The. U.S transport sector contributed 28.2% of national GHG emissions, making it the largest contributor among all sectors in 2018 [4]. Of the petroleum consumption in 2019, having a significant impact on the environment in terms of emissions [5]. Road transport is considered to be the biggest contributor to energy consumption and GHG emissions. Medium, and heavy vehicles accounted for more than 70% of energy consumption in the U.S transport sector in 2019 and nearly 82% of GHG emissions in this sector in 2018 [6,7]. Given the significant impact of road transport on the sustainable performance of the entire transport sector, the

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