Assessing Road Transport Sector's Contribution to Carbon Dioxide Emissions in Bangladesh

Supervisor: Dr. Farseem Mannan Mohammedy, Professor, EEE, BUET
Timeline: August 2022 - May 2023 (4th Year Undergraduate Thesis)

The world is facing a challenging time due to greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and the resulting climate change. Greenhouse gases, such as carbon dioxide (CO2), trap heat in the atmosphere, leading to rising temperatures, sea level rise etc. Major sources of CO2 emissions include fossil fuel combustion, deforestation, industrial processes, residential/commercial energy use, and transportation. Despite a temporary decrease in emissions during the pandemic, global CO2 emissions have rebounded and continue to rise, posing a threat to the Paris Agreement's climate goals. Bangladesh, though a low emitter, is highly vulnerable to the consequences of CO2 emissions. The country's CO2 emissions have been increasing rapidly, with the electricity, transportation, industrial, and agricultural sectors being major contributors. The transport sector, especially road transportation, is a significant source of CO2 emissions in Bangladesh, driven by factors like a growing number of vehicles, inadequate public transportation, and outdated technology.

My thesis utilizes two methods to calculate CO2 emissions. One of the methods for predicting CO2 emission is based on engine capacity and another method is based on fuel capacity. In both methods we have used emission factors from a project conducted in Pune, India named Air Quality Monitoring Project-Indian Clean Air Programme (ICAP). In the first method, I used this to find out the weighted emission factor for different engine capacities and then multiplied it to find out the overall emission factor which was found to be 25.95 Mt CO2 per year. In the second method, we have to find out the weighted average emission factor for each type of fuel. Then multiplying it with the corresponding fuel type to find out the total emission based on fuel type was found to be 28.52 Mt. This substantial discrepancy in the results is primarily due to the notion that diesel is solely used for road transportation, when in fact it is also used in the railway sector that was not in the account of our calculation. Additionally, a strong correlation between GDP growth and CO2 emissions is identified, indicating that increasing industrialization and energy and transport sector activities contribute to higher emissions. Furthermore, my research emphasizes that Bangladesh is on track to surpass the NDC unconditional threshold of 32.98 Mt within the next one to two years, demanding urgent measures to keep emissions below the threshold.