Author(s)

S. J. Lin, P. Rogers & I. J. Lu

Abstract

The energy consumption and CO2 emission from the transportation sector has played an important role in Taiwan. Currently the CO2 released from Taiwan is 245 Mt, accounting for 1% of world emissions and ranking Taiwan as 22nd in the world. Although Taiwan is neither a member of the UNFCCC nor a non- Annex I country, the government has held two national energy conferences to establish priorities of sectors and measures to upgrade the energy efficiency and to reduce CO2 emissions from major sectors. This study aims to assess the linkage and decoupling effects among energy use, economic driving force and CO2 emissions from the transportation sector in order to better understand the development trends among transportation energy demand, GDP and CO2 emissions. We use the decoupling indicator to examine the relative growth rate of environmental pressure (CO2 emission) and economic driving force (GDP) from 1990 to 2004. Comparisons are also made with Japan and South Korea. Results indicate that the growth of transportation energy consumption in Japan was at a higher rate than its economic productivity during 1985-1995; however, there was a strong decoupling effect between 2000 and 2003. In South Korea, there was a strong demand in fuel consumption which yielded a higher growing rate than its economic growth. In Taiwan, the variation of energy use and economic productivity had similar patterns like South Korea; the index showed an expansive coupling effect during 1990-1995 and a weak decoupling after 1995. Comparing the growth rate of traffic CO2 emission with respect to GDP, Japan increased steadily from 1990 to 1999 and then decreased for less CO2 intensity. The linkage effect of CO2 and GDP in Taiwan and South Korea demonstrated weak decoupling in the late 1990s and expansive coupling during 2000-2003. Keywords: energy use, CO2 emission, economic growth, decoupling effect, transportation sector, Taiwan, Japan, South Korea.

Keywords

energy use, CO2 emission, economic growth, decoupling effect, transportation sector, Taiwan, Japan, South Korea.