Carbon footprint valuation of Bangladesh transportation under environmental regulations

The study detects and analyzes the driving factors underlying the CO₂ emission variations in the transport sector of Bangladesh, including the carbon coefficient, fossil fuel ratio, energy use per unit turnover, turnover per unit of transport value-added, and value-added of transport from 2003 to 2021. The objective is to analyze the transportation (i.e., land, water and air) factor's effects under the logarithmic mean Divisia index, Tapio index, CO₂ mitigation potential methods, and their decouplings. The results show that: (i) value-added was the main CO₂ driving factor, while CO₂ coefficient, fuel substitution, energy use, and turnover value mitigated CO₂ emissions. (ii) Land and water transport seemed to be the main CO₂ producers and meaningfully contributed to the economy. (iii) Only two decoupling states─weak decoupling and strong decoupling appeared, in which economic growth was the significant turn towards the best state. (iv) Sub-transportation presented significant and strong decouplings in the maximum intervals. (iv) The carbon mitigation rate was observed at 0.26 % during the period in which the economic structural factor was the main factor contributing to declining CO₂ emissions. Finally, the study proposes frameworks that will support policymakers in estimating energy and technological policies for climate and economic sustainability.