Transportation will be the biggest contributor to climate change when it comes to emission levels, likely rising faster than any other CO2 source through 2050, according to a draft of a United Nations report.
Scheduled to be presented April 13, the 2,061-page study found that greenhouse gases from vehicles could increase as much as 71 percent compared with 2010 levels as expanding nations demand more cars, Bloomberg Businessweek reported.
Nations including China, India and Brazil have rapidly emerging economies that create increased demand for goods to be delivered and cars to be driven, both of which contribute to emissions.
Despite attempts to mitigate the rise in demand for transportation, "there will still be a lot of transportation growth in places such as Thailand, Indonesia and India," Dave Hurst, a transportation analyst at Navigant Research, told Businessweek.
Governments have been attempting to stave off rising pollution with subsidies for public transportation and fuel efficiency, but the jump in economic growth may outweigh these efforts.
The U.N. study, which is the third in a three-part series of reports, said that vehicle emission levels are twice as high as they were in 1970. Greenhouse gases produced by transportation, 80 percent of which were from road vehicles, expanded to 7 gigatons of carbon dioxide in 2010.
Sales of cars worldwide are expected to keep rising, with research firm IHS Inc predicting that total cars sold will come to 70.2 million this year and increase 27 percent by 2020, Businessweek reported.
On Monday, officials and scientists commenced a five-day meeting to discuss and finalize the report, which comes after four years of research from hundreds of experts, said an Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change press release.
The study's importance "can hardly be overemphasized," IPCC chair Rajendra Pachauri said in an opening statement on Monday.
In draft form, the report said that technologies such as power plants that burn sustainable energy sources and then store CO2 emissions underground could be key to cutting back on greenhouse gases, National Geographic reported.
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