Title: Limited provision of roads as a bottleneck on vehicle CO₂ emissions in Asia: an international comparison of national trends

Authors: Peter J. Marcotullio, Eric Williams

Addresses: Hunter College, CUNY, 695 Park Ave NY, NY 10021, USA. ' Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering and The School of Sustainability, Arizona State University, P.O. Box 875309, Tempe, Arizona 85287-5306, USA

Abstract: This paper explores the relationship between road infrastructure, economic growth and road CO₂ emissions. The basic premise is that many developing nations have achieved sufficient wealth to generate substantial demand for road vehicles, but that actual use is constrained by limited provision of surfaced roads. Our main result is that for comparable levels of income (GDP/capita), CO₂ emissions per length of paved road are far higher in rapidly developing Asia as compared to the USA. These findings suggest existence of an |infrastructure bottleneck|, that when relieved, may influence the future trajectory of road transport CO₂ emissions in developing Asia.

Keywords: Asia Pacific; carbon dioxide emissions; climate change; developing countries; road infrastructure; economic growth; road transport; time-space telescoping; transportation; USA; vehicle emissions; United States; surfaced roads; road availability; bottleneck; air pollution; paved roads.

DOI: 10.1504/IJEP.2007.014500

International Journal of Environment and Pollution, 2007 Vol.30 No.1, pp.27 - 44

Published online: 12 Jul 2007 *

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