An Energy Approach to Evaluation of Carbon Dioxide Emissions from Kenya’s Road Freight Transport

Abstract

Information on carbon emission from the different sectors in Kenya is scant. This research was conducted in Kenya in December 20211 with the objective of establishing the fuel efficiency and the associated Carbon dioxide(CO₂) emission from the road freight transport between the port of Mombasa to the capital city of Nairobi along the northern corridor. This was achieved through a week long survey for outbound fright trucks. The fuel efficiency and the CO₂ emitted were then derived using both the activity approach and the energy approach.

The mean fuel efficiency on actual load found was 0.01327 Litres of diesel/ Ton-Km. The two approaches to the calculation of carbon dioxide emission gave different values with the activity based approach giving 595204.4 Tonnes while the energy based approach gave 315635.157 Tonnes of CO₂ per a num. This level of emission from a road section is high and calls for urgent mitigation measures.

Keywords: CO2 emission; fuel efficiency; Road freight transport; Ton-Kilometre.