The line graph illustrates the total number of vehicles in England and Wales from 2000 to 2020, while the bar chart compares the volume of carbon dioxide emissions produced by four distinct categories of transport – cars, buses, vans, and trucks – over the same twenty-year period
Overall, it is evident that vehicle ownership in England and Wales experienced a continuous and substantial upward trend throughout the period. Concurrently, cars remained the predominant contributor to carbon dioxide emissions, with both cars and trucks exhibiting a noticeable increase in emission levels over time, while buses and vans remained relatively stable or fluctuated minimally.
In terms of total vehicle numbers, the figure commenced at approximately 20 million in the year 2000. Over the next two decades, ownership grew steadily and uniformly. By 2010, the volume had expanded to nearly 40 million, before ultimately peaking at 60 million by the end of the period in 2020, representing a threefold increase from the starting point.
Regarding CO2 emissions, cars emitted the highest amount of greenhouse gas across all recorded years, starting at around 2.3 tonnes in 2000 and climbing steadily to 2.7 tonnes in 2010 and 3.0 tonnes by 2020. Trucks also registered a prominent rise, with their emissions nearly doubling from 0.7 tonnes in 2000 to 1.3 tonnes in 2020, surpassing all other vehicle types except cars. In contrast, the emissions from vans grew marginally from 0.5 to 0.7 tonnes between 2000 and 2010 before dipping back to 0.6 tonnes in 2020. Buses consistently produced the lowest amounts of CO2, hovering around 0.3 tonnes in the first decade before declining slightly to roughly 0.2 tonnes by 2020.