Traffic overview

GHG emissions from transport are recorded according to the respective National Inventory Report (NIR) of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). Accordingly, the data collection for GHG emissions in the transport sector includes CO₂ emissions from fossil energy sources and other greenhouse gases (especially methane and nitrous oxide) that are directly released by vehicles (tail-pipe emissions). Conversely, the CO₂ emissions from renewable energy sources and electricity used in the transport sector are not allocated to the transport sector. Irrespective of this, CO₂, as the main product of fuel combustion, is the dominant greenhouse gas in the transport sector.

The following figure shows the greenhouse gas emissions of national and international transport (bunkering for sea-going shipping and international air transport) for Germany. Similar to final energy consumption, these have remained almost unchanged from 1990 to 2019. In 2019, a total of 164 million metric tons of CO₂ equivalents were emitted in national transport. This quantity is subdivided into 162 million metric tons CO₂ equivalents for CO₂ emissions and 2 million metric tons CO₂ equivalents for the both remaining greenhouse gases methane and nitrous oxide. With the COVID-19 pandemic, greenhouse gas emissions from national transport decreased to 146 million metric tons CO₂ equivalent in 2020 and 148 million metric tons CO₂ equivalent in 2021. [2] The share of international transport (bunkering for sea-going shipping and international air transport) increased by 80 % to 33 million metric tons CO₂ equivalents in the same period [3].