Understanding the large role of long-distance travel in carbon emissions from passenger travel

Zia Wadud (), Muhammad Adeel and Jillian Anable
Additional contact information
Zia Wadud: University of Leeds
Muhammad Adeel: University of the West of England
Jillian Anable: University of Leeds

Nature Energy, 2024, vol. 9, issue 9, 1129-1138

Abstract: Abstract Long-distance passenger travel has received rather sparse attention for decarbonization. Here we characterize the long-distance travel pattern in England and explore its importance on carbon emissions from and decarbonization of passenger travel. We find that only 2.7% of a person’s trips are for long distance travel (>50 miles one-way), but they account for 61.3% of the miles and 69.3% of the greenhouse gas (CO2 equivalent) emissions from passenger travel, highlighting its importance for decarbonizing passenger transport. Long-distance travel per person has also been increasing over time, trending in the opposite direction to shorter-distance travel. Flying for leisure and social purposes are the largest contributors to long distance miles and emissions, and these miles are also increasing. Overall, per capita travel emissions have started decreasing slowly from 2007, but are still higher than in 1997. We propose a new metric—emissions reduction sensitivity (% emission reduced/% trips altered)—to understand the efficiency of travel demand related initiatives to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Long-distance travel—especially flying—can offer orders of magnitude larger emissions reduction sensitivity compared with urban travel, which suggests that a proportionate policy approach is necessary.

Date: 2024
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41560-024-01561-3 Abstract (text/html)
Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:nat:natene:v:9:y:2024:i:9:d:10.1038_s41560-024-01561-3

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
https://www.nature.com/nenergy/

DOI: 10.1038/s41560-024-01561-3

Access Statistics for this article

Nature Energy is currently edited by Fouad Khan

More articles in Nature Energy from Nature
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().