[sustran] sustran-discuss V1 #100

[Britton EcoPlan]

Dear Sustran Discussion List and of course Walter Hook,

Walter Hook wrote: >>The Global Environmental Facility, which funds major
projects related to
greenhouse gas emissions reductions and is controlled by the World Bank is
about to come out with their funding criteria for the transport sector, and
as we feared the news is grim.... We need to mobilize a letter of complaint
to Mr. Dilip Ajuta from the World Bank GEF office.<<

A couple of quick and I hope useful reactions to that, if I may.

1.  This (their present game plan)  is a shameful, retrograde piece of
work, and I feel sure that it is doubtless  fairly presented in your note
of yesterday.  I certainly agree that their recommendation  requires an
immediate and strong  response, and further that this forum can be a great
place to start.

2. I call it shameful because it is so dreadfully predictable in its own
way.  Count on the Bank to find yet one more way to get it wrong in the
transport sector (that between us here in private, of course). 

3.  The problem of course is that they have once again narrowed their
sights before really understanding what the real issue set is... that is,
they are dishing out answers without understanding what the basic questions
are.

4.  As our observant friends point out, it's not that there is anything
WRONG with the hydrogen/fuel cell option.  I have no problem understanding
how my friends at IIASA and the AIT can fall in love with this stuff. 
Indeed it is terrific stuff and a whole gob of public money cleverly
deployed is indeed needed to make the timely breakthrough which really is
(yes! this time it really is) right out there in the near term horizon. 
(Fact is we will be looking very closely at these  technologies in the next
round of our Toward Zero Emissions Conference which is shortly to get
underway at http://www.the-commons.org/zero-ems, together with
photovoltaics, because we too are convinced that this is heady and timely
stuff).

5. Problem is, of course, that all of this means precious little in real
world terms if our concern is -- as indeed it should be! -- with cities and
regions that are presently  being split asunder by their lousy
transportation configurations.  Fooling around with power sources of
vehicles is no more than nibbling at the margins of the real problems they
are facing.  Even if we were somehow able to get it all splendidly right,
even in a best case all of this would not be making much more than a
percent of a percent impact on the full range of sustainability issues over
the coming 5 or more years.  As they put it in sunny Southern California
(cough! cough!), let's get real.

6. You all know this well of course, but somehow we have to find a way to
get the message across. 

7.  Based on what I read yesterday I very much doubt that Mr. Dilip Ajuta
is going to be part of the solution.  Looks to me in fact  like he is a
central part of the problem.  So I really see no sense of appealing to him,
since it will doubtless only drive him yet deeper into a denial mode (and
we all know how that works).  May I suggest instead that we go for (a) his
boss's boss and (b) do this in the full glare of day (though of course most
genteel-ly). 

8.  Might be that what is needed is a nicely reasoned, calmly worded plain
English response of no more than half  a page which makes our point and
then is signed by one or two hundred "International Experts and Concerned
Citizens".  ( Such a "Declaration" could be backed up by supporting papers,
a bibliography, list of WWW sites that help make the point, further define
what might be the path,  etc., but should be kept short and to the point
for media and public discussion purposes. Also, wouldn't it make sense for
us in our wording of all this to take a very positive slant?  We might, for
example, heap praise on them for their recommendation, but then kindly
explain that we have to go WAY beyond that if the truly agonizing
environmental and life quality brief is to be properly served.)

From here, we would be pleased to offer a special home page on  The Commons
in support of this initiative.  I also feel that we could probably come up
with quite a large number of distinguished signatories.

Finally, might we somehow link this to Kyoto or somehow use it as a fulcrum
to lift up this dead weight.

Sorry to be so wordy and so hasty, but seems to me that this needs to be
attacked without losing even another day.

With all good wishes,

Eric Britton

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