There is no gain stating the very well-known fact that the transport system of the modern, urban world has a disastrous impact on the environment, and is largely responsible for the environmental degradation. However, the potential paradox lies in the fact that with the advent of technology, in the post-industrial era, industries have to operate in a global marketplace through with the help of a developed transport infrastructure, and yet this can affect the functional integrity of the natural ecosystem. There is no denying the fact that transport is indeed vital to the distribution of goods and services, and yet the transport sector itself is a huge source of environment pollutants such as Carbon Monoxide, Aldehydes, un-burnt hydrocarbons and other harmful gases (Johansson et al. 2014). Besides, it is equally important to mention here that the development of the transport sector also leads to the degradation of the terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems that in turn can affect the biodiversity of a specific region.
While the transport sector of almost every region of the world has a very disastrous impact on the environment, developed nations such as the UK deserves special mention. It is predicted that by the year of 2025, the traffic of the UK is likely to increase up to 142 % and it has been claimed that despite all the fuel efficiency measures, the energy consumption of the place will continue to increase (Stern 2014). It is important to analyze the state here that the greenhouse gas emission from the traffic sector has increased by 8% in between the years of 1990 and 2007, while the road transport alone accounts for 22% of the vehicular emissions in the UK (Elsom 2014). Since this is affecting the air quality in a disastrous way, as a result of which the vehicles are unable to meet the standards of the health based national air quality objectives, it is important to evaluate the way in which the environmental impact of the transport sector can be reduced in the UK.
The transport sector of the UK produces a significant amount of greenhouse gas that considerably threatens the environment and ecological sustainability in the UK. Hence, it is important to discuss and evaluate the ways in which the adverse environmental impact of the transport sector can be minimized in the UK. First of all, it should be remembered that approximately 2 million new cars and almost 8 million used cars are being sold every year in the UK, and hence a restriction should be imposed on the consumption and usage of cars (Demir 2014). The government should collaborate with different non-governmental organizations, and endorse the importance of walking and cycling, for keeping the environment clean, and ensuring the health and well-being of the UK residents. However, a sudden change cannot be expected unless enough public awareness is being spread, and hence it is suggested that the government undertakes different eco-friendly initiatives that increase public awareness regarding the adverse impact of the transport sector on the ecological sustainability. Although some of the vehicle users can be asked to reduce the usage of cars, it is not possible to restrict the car usage as far as the industries are concerned. London, being a center of global financial activity, may encounter challenges in ensuring environmental sustainability through the reduction in the emission of Carbon di-oxide and local pollutants. Hence, in order to minimize the impact of transport system on environmental sustainability, the road-railway parallel layout can be adopted by the UK, as it has been effectively implemented in some parts of Paris. Consequently, alongside the roadway, a parallel route of railway has to be created so that the overreliance of the people on the cars and polluting roadside vehicles can be considerably reduced. Further, the UK government is expected to invest in a variety of research and de elopement activities that can bring about technological innovation in the transport industry (Viana et al. 2014). The government should introduce a new legislation that will offer incentives and monetary benefits to the automobile manufacturing companies that will invest in innovative technologies which can reduce the Co2 emissions from the vehicles. This will incentivize the motor manufacturers as they will get recognition for introducing technological innovation. This will result in the production of energy efficient vehicles, contributing to significant CO2 savings. Besides, the government should also set a limit to the emission rate of the fuel, and any vehicle exceeding the emission rate, must not be allowed registration or license for sale. In order to encourage the consumers buy cars that run on bio-fuel and CNG, the government of UK needs to minimize the vehicle costs that use eco-friendly fuel, and should impose additional taxes for the consumption of diesel cars annually.
Although apparently the electricity generating sector and the transport sector appear to be two distinct and remotely associated sectors, the former can have a positive impact in reducing the disastrous impact of the latter. The electric cars operated by the solar energy do not in any way affect the environment through the emission of harmful pollutants. Owing to the increasing number of diesel cars on the roads, the electric cars as the ultra-low emission vehicles should be extensively used. An electric vehicle is not only an effective option to choose, considering the low cost but also because the electric car running on renewable energy has got zero exhaust emissions. TH UK government definitely requires to encourage the shift from gasoline cars to electric cars. There is no point stating the obvious facts that he total annual downward solar energy at the surface is 6800 times more than the world annual energy consumption and at the same time, the global wind within 200 m of the surface provides much more power than current global power consumption (Richardson et al. 2013). With the help of the photovoltaic cells, it is possible to convert sunlight into electricity. It is important to note that the high rate of carbon emission from the diesel run cars is responsible for the depletion of crude oil supplies as well as the increasing art of Carbon di oxide in the environment, ultimately lading to global warming and melting of glaciers. In case the renewable resources are being used for charging the electric cars, the respective cars will tend to produce less emission. As oil and coal are replaced by natural gas, wind and solar energy, the electric cars will have no heat or gas to release as a bi-product of combustion and therefore they have zero emission rates. Research reports have already stated that the electric cars, using the natural resources tend to emit 60% less carbon di oxide and other polluting gas as compared with the normal cars (Mwasilu et al. 2014). However, it is not sufficient for the UK government to ensure the high rate of usage and consumption of the electric cars only, but rather that the electric cars are running on the electricity produced by the natural resources (Noorden 2014). It should be noted here that if someone is driving an electric car with electricity from a coal plant, that car is bound to produce as much carbon di oxide as a gas powered car. Hence, the electric cars have to be coupled with low carbon electricity sources as well, so that they have the potential to reduce grnhous consumptions by a high rate (Twidel and Weir 2015). Among the natural resources, since solar power is already the cheapest and widely available resource on earth, the cost of maintaining the electric cars running with the energy derived from these resources will also be very cheap and reasonable. Hence, the UK government in collaboration with the respective car companies has to endorse the usage and benefits of buying an electric car running on the energy produced from the natural resources. Countries like China, Malaysia, Philippines and Mexico are rich in natural resources, especially the solar energy, and hence the UK government can collaborate with the car manufacturing companies of these countries to create cost effective electric cars in the UK (Mathiesen et al. 2015).
It is needless to state here that atmospheric pollution is a serious problem in today’s world, and since the transport sector of UK is contributing to this problem, it is important to monitor and evaluate the impact of the same. First of all, it is important to measure the monthly emission rates of the pollutant gases, especially the pollutant gases that can significantly affect the environment, and accordingly the automatic monitoring stations should be set up in different regions of the UK (Zhou et al. 2014). These permanent housing stations consist of a variety of sophisticated electronic instruments, whereby the air would be continually pumped into the analyzer and the level of each of the pollutants present in the air would be recorded. In this way, it would be possible for the UK government to evaluate and gauge the extent to which the air is being contaminated. The government is required to set a strict standard as far as the quality of the air is concerned, and accordingly the quality standard of the region can be compared. It is important to note here that for these automatic stations, it is not possible to measure and evaluate the air quality and the emission rate of each region of the UK, or each street, and hence only those areas would be considered which are known for their excessive public exposure to air pollution, owing to the transport problem. While checking the air pollution levels, these stations would also measure the amount of NO2, NOx, O3 and other harmful polluting gases (Griffin 2016). However, at the same time, it is important to ensure that the quality of air is being checked and examined in all the different parts of the UK. Hence, it is important to set up mobile stations as well as the permanent stations. While the permanent stations, as described above is meant to measure and record the emission rates of the chosen parts of the certain area, the temporal stations can be used for recording the temporal distribution in few fixed points of a certain area (Cheng et al. 2014). The government is required to establish a strict air quality standard that should not be violated, and if any area is found to violate the maximum limit, then the pollution causing vehicle owners would be penalized. In order to cut the toxic air quality problem, the government should increase the vehicle excise duty of the high pollution causing diesel cars.
To conclude, it is important to state here that the transport system of the UK causes adverse impat on the environment, and it is highly important to immediately mitigate the environmental as well as the health impact of the transport sector of the UK. The UK government has been so far employing the use of over-optimistic modeling system, that has ultimately led the air pollution problem take a toll o the environmental sustainability as well as public health in the UK. The government report itself suggests that the air pollution problem in the UK has caused 30,000 deaths in the UK every year, with 14% of the people suffering from respiratory issues, while 6% suffering from cancer, owing to the air pollution problem. The government of the UK not only requires to monitor the air quality through these air quality monitoring stations, but it should also raise the public awareness by publishing the air quality reports of each city at periodical intervals. It is very exigent to replace the diesel cars by the low emission cars, and the government should come forward to cancel registration to the diesel cars, until they conform to the prescribed emission limit, so that in the coming ten years, the air pollution problem in the UK can be caused to a considerable extent. As of now, the UL government has announced only five places to be clean air zones, but it should also start including other zones, so as to ensure ecological balance as well as to safeguard the health and well-being of the British citizens.
Reference List
Cheng, Y., Li, X., Li, Z., Jiang, S., Li, Y., Jia, J. and Jiang, X., 2014, November. AirCloud: a cloud-based air-quality monitoring system for everyone. In Proceedings of the 12th ACM Conference on Embedded Network Sensor Systems (pp. 251-265). ACM.
Demir, E., Bekta?, T. and Laporte, G., 2014. The bi-objective pollution-routing problem. European Journal of Operational Research, 232(3), pp.464-478.
Elsom, D., 2014. Smog alert: managing urban air quality. Routledge.
Griffin, R.D., 2016. Principles of air quality management. CRC Press.
Johansson, O., Pearce, D. and Maddison, D., 2014. Blueprint 5: True costs of road transport (Vol. 5). Routledge.
Mathiesen, B.V., Lund, H., Connolly, D., Wenzel, H., Østergaard, P.A., Möller, B., Nielsen, S., Ridjan, I., Karnøe, P., Sperling, K. and Hvelplund, F.K., 2015. Smart Energy Systems for coherent 100% renewable energy and transport solutions. Applied Energy, 145, pp.139-154.
Mwasilu, F., Justo, J.J., Kim, E.K., Do, T.D. and Jung, J.W., 2014. Electric vehicles and smart grid interaction: A review on vehicle to grid and renewable energy sources integration. Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, 34, pp.501-516.
Richardson, D.B., 2013. Electric vehicles and the electric grid: A review of modeling approaches, Impacts, and renewable energy integration. Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, 19, pp.247-254.
Stern, A.C. ed., 2014. Fundamentals of air pollution. Elsevier.
Twidell, J. and Weir, T., 2015. Renewable energy resources. Routledge.
Van Noorden, R., 2014. A better battery. Nature, 507(7490), p.26.
Viana, M., Hammingh, P., Colette, A., Querol, X., Degraeuwe, B., de Vlieger, I. and van Aardenne, J., 2014. Impact of maritime transport emissions on coastal air quality in Europe. Atmospheric Environment, 90, pp.96-105.
Zhou, M., Liu, Y., Wang, L., Kuang, X., Xu, X. and Kan, H., 2014. Particulate air pollution and mortality in a cohort of Chinese men. Environmental Pollution, 186, pp.1-6.
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