ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses the adverse impacts of present motorized transport. These are mostly but by no means entirely the result of the use of internal combustion engines to propel vehicles. The chapter considers actual and potential global environmental impacts of transport, including climate change, ozone depletion, the proliferation of persistent organic pollutants, and ocean acidification. It explains transport’s local and regional environmental impacts. The chapter focuses on atmospheric pollution and air quality, but impacts on land and water. A critical link between oil depletion and climate change is that mitigation of the impacts of climate change could require additional use of oil. For most transport, potential climate change impacts are strongly correlated with energy use. The salient exceptions are aviation, for which the impacts could be more than would be expected from energy use, and electric vehicles, for which the impacts can be unrelated to energy use.
