Explain the Environmental effects of increased demand for road & air transport

2. An example of the environmental effects of increased demand for road an air transport would be: The USA and China are the worlds greatest polluters, and in the case of china, the fastest growing emitter of greenhouse gasses. Emerging economies such as Poland and India are also growing contributors to global emissions of CO2 although largely through industrialisation it is also a result of rising vehicle ownership levels. Overall, the UK is responsible for around 4% of all CO2 levels worldwide.
3. The ever increasing demand for passenger and freight transport in the form of both road and air is forecast to continue to increase in the foreseeable future. This means obvious environmental implications, namely that road and air transport is and will continue to be a major source of atmospheric pollution through greenhouse gas emissions

        Atmospheric pollution is a negative externality in that it has an effect on innocent third parties and social costs>private costs. Shown on the diagram below. This means the market is functioning at point X, where Price of transport is P and the quantity of air pollution through air and road transport produced is Q. Thus there is an overconsumption & overproduction of consumers not paying the full cost of their road and air transport thus allocative inefficiency exists, the market is failing. A welfare triangle loss of YXZ occurs. The welfare of consumers could be increased by this amount if output of road and air transport is lowered and the resources saved my doing this are put to better use that helps the environnment.

        To correct this market failure of air pollution, the equilibrium should be at point Y, where allocative efficiency is achieved, as price is now = to marginal social costs. By  at producing Y, the price paid for road and air transport increases to P1 and the quantity produced falls to Q1.

Private costs now = social costs. The polluter now pays and the externality has been internalised.

        Smog hanging over cities is the most familiar and obvious form of air pollution. But there are different kinds of pollution, (some visible, some invisible), that contribute to global warming. Generally any substance that people introduce into the atmosphere that has damaging effects on living things and the environment is considered air pollution.

        Carbon dioxide, a greenhouse gas, is the main pollutant that is warming Earth. Carbon dioxide is widely considered to be a pollutant when road and air transport as they involve the burning of fossil fuels such as gasoline and natural gas. In the past 150 years, such activities have pumped enough carbon dioxide into the atmosphere to raise its levels higher than they have been for hundreds of thousands of years.

        Nitrogen oxide and hydrocarbons are omitted from car and plane exhausts and severely affect air quality. This deterioration in the air that we breathe can cause respiratory difficulties for some people. It also makes acid rain when it mixes with water in clouds – this causes damage to wildlife and plant life.

        On a larger scale, governments are taking measures to limit emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases. One way is through the Kyoto Protocol, an agreement between countries that they will cut back on carbon dioxide emissions. Another method is to put taxes on carbon emissions or higher taxes on gasoline, so that people and companies will have greater incentives to conserve energy and pollute less.