Outrage + Optimism / Special Series

The Future of Transport

The transport sector is at a tipping point, where technologies and fuels have advanced so significantly, that a shift to a systemic-level clean up is in our hands. Is the end of the fossil fuel driven combustion engine in sight?

About this series

Some of the greatest advancements and best minds of their time created the locomotives, automobiles, ship engines and airplanes that fuelled the industrial revolution and transformed the ability of humans to trade and travel across vast distances. With only a few technological improvements over time, these same modes of transport and travel still underpin the global economy in 2020.

Whilst these forms of transport are more efficient today than when they were invented, mainly in the 1800s, their reliance on fossil fuels puts the transport sector and humanity in danger. The continued use of fossil fuels in the transportation sector contaminates the air we breathe, the land and the ocean and is the major cause of climate change. Today, nearly 30% of the world’s greenhouse gas emissions come from burning fossil fuels to power our cars, trains, ships, trucks and airplanes. We have to radically change it all.

This Outrage + Optimism investigative series on The Future of Transport explores how the transport sector can shift from a growing problem, causing irreparable damage to our climate, to a beacon of hope that be cleaned up at a systemic level.