Abstract
Climate policy requires substantial reductions in long-term greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, including in the transportation sector. As passenger cars are one of the dominant CO2 emitters in the transport sector, governments and the automobile industry have implemented various countermeasures, including decarbonization of fuels, more energy efficient vehicles, and transport demand management. However, the total impact of these measures in the long term remains unclear. This study aims to clarify the CO2 emissions reductions from passenger cars by 2050 in 1727 municipalities in Japan under a declining population. To estimate CO2 emissions, we model travel behavior and traffic situations reflecting the regional conditions of the municipalities, including population density and accessibility to public transport for the base year 2010. Assuming plausible scenarios for future populations and automobile technologies, we estimate CO2 emissions from passenger cars. We estimate that CO2 emissions will decline by 64–70% between 2010 and 2050, with automobile technologies playing the largest role. We find that the impact of urban compaction is marginal at the national level but varies by municipality. These results imply that, given regional variations, all countermeasures, including technology and demand management, must be used to achieve the long-term target of CO2 emissions reductions.
Highlights
The transport sector accounted for 23% of global CO2 emissions in 2010, and its share of emissions is expected to increase at a higher rate than that of other sectors towards 2050 [1]
We estimated that CO2 emissions from passenger cars in 2050 are reduced by 64% and 7I0n%thuisndsteurdbya,sweleineesatinmdactoedmtphaacttCscOen2 eamrioisss,iroensspefrcotimveplya,scsoenmgpearrceadrswiinth20250010aeremriesdsiuocnesd
Ibny26041%6, tahnedJa7p0%anuesnedgerovbearsnelmineenatnsedtcaolmonpga-cttesrcmentaarrgioest,orfesapne8c0ti%verleyd, ucocmtiopnarinedGwHiGthe2m01is0seiomnisssbiyon2s0.5I0ni2n0t1h6e, the Japanese government set a long-term target of an 80% reduction in greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions by 2050 in the
Summary
The transport sector accounted for 23% of global CO2 emissions in 2010, and its share of emissions is expected to increase at a higher rate than that of other sectors towards 2050 [1]. The countermeasures include reducing carbon intensity [3,4], improving the energy efficiency of vehicles [5,6,7,8], electrification of vehicles [9,10], and reducing vehicle weights [11], as well as demand management measures, such as traffic control and modal shift policies [12,13,14,15] and urban compaction [16,17,18,19,20,21]. The International Energy Agency (IEA) estimated that technological measures would reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions in the transport sector by 54% from 2015 to 2060 under the “2 degree scenario” and by 83% for the same period in the “beyond 2 degree scenario” [22], in which a very ambitious technology deployment rate is assumed. In regard to demand management, Cuenot et al [23] estimated the effect of a modal shift that reduced automobile and air traffic by 25%
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