Road traffic responsible for 17% of CO2 emissions

Last year road traffic accounted for 17 percent of the total amount of carbon dioxide (CO2) emitted in the Netherlands, according to Statistics Netherlands. The total CO2 emissions from road traffic was 2 percent higher in 2018 than in 2017 and 28 percent higher than in 1990.

Passenger cars accounted for 62 percent of the CO2 emissions in road traffic. Heavy goods vehicles and buses accounted for 20 percent. 

In 2018, passenger cars, delivery vans, heavy goods vehicles and buses drove a total of 150.6 billion kilometers in the Netherlands, compared to 102 billion kilometers in 1990. Passenger cars and delivery vans in particular covered more kilometers.

Passenger cars accounted for 81 percent of the 150.6 billion kilometers covered in the Netherlands last year. That is 43 percent more car kilometers than in 1990. Delivery vans drove over 18 billion kilometers last year, more than double compared to 1990. 

The number of kilometers covered by plug-in hybrids and fully electric passenger cars more than doubled since 2015, from nearly 1.6 billion kilometers to 3.2 billion kilometers. Almost 650 million of these kilos were covered by fully electric cars, the other 2.6 billion by plug-in hybrids.