IF CAR numbers keep increasing at the present rate, there will be more than a billion on the road by 2025. Today, motor vehicles put out 900 million tonnes of carbon dioxide a yearabout 15 per cent of our total output. More vehicles will mean more global warming.
Also by 2025, two-thirds of the world's people will live in cities, so traffic jams and pollution will loom large in most people's lives. Worst of all will be the megacities of Asia. Beijing, Shanghai and Calcutta will each be home to as many as 20 million people, Bombay to 25 million.
Life in the country may not be much better. Asia is heading for a downpour of acid rain that will destroy forests and wither crops. The worst hit look like being Thailand, south-east China, north-east India and Korea, where economic growth is powered by fossil fuels rich in sulphur.
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