Economic and environmental analysis of green transport penetration in Pakistan

The transport sector is going through a transition from a traditional to a sustainable system. Advanced countries have evaluated the costs and benefits of such transition, however, developing countries like Pakistan have rarely looked into evaluating such transition rigorously. This paper uses the transport sector of Pakistan as a case study and provides an economic evaluation of different scenarios for sustainable transportation in the region. The study has used the Long-range Energy Alternative Planning (LEAP) framework to evaluate the environmental and social costs of three scenarios, Business as Usual Scenario (BAUS), Efficient Combustion Scenario (ECS), and Hybrid Vehicle Scenario (HVS). It concluded that by 2040, the HVS and ECS will reduce carbon dioxide emissions by 303.7 and 213.3 million metric tons respectively compared to BAUS. These savings in terms of social cost will be US$ 10.1 billion in HVS and US$ 7.2 billion in ECS as compared to BAUS. By the year 2040, oil demand in the transportation system will also be possible to contain at the 2026 level. This research is anticipated to help discover the best policy decisions for increasing the share of green fuels in the transport sector of Pakistan.