Final answer:
Factors hindering the reduction of transportation emissions include reliance on fossil fuels, technological and economic barriers associated with electrifying transport, and political challenges. Strategies to address these issues include adopting low-carbon fuels, improving fuel efficiency, and reducing travel needs.
Step-by-step explanation:
Challenges in Reducing Transportation Emissions
The question of why we haven't reduced transportation emissions pertains to several complex factors. In the United States in 2018, 28.2 percent of emissions were due to consumption of fossil fuels for transportation, with a majority stemming from personal vehicles like passenger cars and light-duty trucks. There are key strategies that can help mitigate this, such as:
Using low-carbon fuels.
Improving fuel efficiency.
Reducing travel needs through urban planning and telecommuting initiatives.
However, transitioning to electric cars, while a potential solution, presents challenges such as high costs, drawbacks in technology, and practical implications like infrastructure for mass-scale charging.
Furthermore, a significant barrier is the mismatch in energy density between liquid fossil fuels and battery storage, which impacts everything from the feasibility of long-range travel to rapid refueling capabilities.
The political landscape is another hurdle, marked by free-riding issues, international ambitions, and domestic pressures.
Rich countries, for example, often struggle to move away from the status quo of using fossil fuels, while developing countries emphasize their right to economic development linked to emissions. There are also practical and economic barriers to building a non-fossil energy infrastructure.