[sustran] SLoCaT Partnership push to achieve sustainable transport enabling universal access to safe, clean, and affordable mobility

Cornie Huizenga cornie.huizenga at slocatpartnership.org
Sat Nov 5 13:47:24 JST 2011


On October 30th the world welcomed Danica May Camacho as the world’s 7th
billion inhabitant.  She joined the world in Manila, one of the fastest
growing megacities in the world.  Manila typifies in many respects what is
wrong with transport in developing countries.  Streets that are choked with
cars, motorcycles and other vehicles that make it unsafe for children like
Danica to breathe the air or cross the streets.

Yet, transport plays an important role in providing access to jobs, markets
and schools. Cities like Manila will have to improve their transport
infrastructure and services to improve the quality of life in the city and
to lift more people from poverty.  The manner in which Manila and thousands
of other cities in the developing world develop their transport will
determine the sustainability of urban life in coming decades for Danica and
her future children.

Global sustainability is the focus of the Rio+20 UN Conference on
Sustainable Development which will be held in June 2012 in Rio de Janeiro,
20 years after the first global conference on sustainable development.  The
outlook for the transport sector is bleak, especially in developing
countries. Car ownership will triple to over 2 billion, and trucking will
quadruple up to 2050 as forecasted by the International Transport Forum
with the bulk of the growth happening in the developing world. While road
fatalities in the developed world have gone down they are projected to rise
by 80 percent by 2020 in low and middle level income countries. Air
pollution from transport is an important contributor to the 500,000 persons
in the developing world who die annually because of ambient air pollution.
CO2 emissions from transport, an important contributor to climate change,
are expected to grow 80 percent with most of the growth coming from the
developing world.

Concern on the growing lack of sustainability of transport in developing
world led in 2009 to the establishment of the Partnership on Sustainable
Low Carbon Transport (SLoCaT), which is a UN registered  partnership.

To help shape the outcome of the Rio+20 conference the SLoCaT Partnership
today released its call to the United Nations urging adoption by the Rio+20
conference of a Sustainable Development Goal that calls on the world to
“Achieve sustainable transport that enables universal access to safe,
clean, and affordable mobility”.

 “The technologies and policies needed to make transport more sustainable
are well known, and have proven to be effective, and in many cases come at
net-negative cost when all the different benefits are counted” says Vera
Lucia Vicentini, principal transport specialist at the Inter-American
Development Bank and the current chair of the SLoCaT Partnership.

To measure progress towards sustainable transport SLoCaT proposes targets
and indicators which include: global transport greenhouse gas emissions
should peak latest by 2020 and be cut by at least 40 percent by 2050
compared to 2005 levels. Traffic-related deaths are to be cut in half by
2025.  The mode share of urban public transport by 2025 should be doubled
relative to 2010  and we should boost walking and cycling.

The SLoCaT submission was supported by 20 organizations representing
development organizations, non-governmental organizations and private
sector organizations.  These include the African Development Bank, Asian
Development Bank, Centro de Transport Sustenable de Mexico, Clean Air
Initiative for Asian Cities, Corporación Andina de Fomento, Inter American
Development Bank, International Energy Agency, International Association of
Public Transportation, Institute for Transportation and Development Policy,
the Stockholm Environment Institute and Veolia Transdev.

"It's significant that such a wide array of groups agree that sustainable
transport needs to be recognized by the world's governments as a
fundamental goal for sustainable development. The upcoming Rio+20
Sustainable Development Conference in June 2012 will provide an important
opportunity to better align international cooperation and investment to
boost economic growth, equity and the environment," said Michael Replogle,
Global Policy Director and Founder of the Institute for Transportation and
Development Policy. "With a majority of the world's 7 billion people now
living in cities, it's time to focus transport investment and policy on
producing safe, clean, low-carbon, affordable transport."

------------------------
See http://www.slocat.net/rio+20  for the full text of the SLoCaT
submission to the Rio+20 Conference and an overview of other transport
related submissions

For further information please contact Cornie Huizenga, Joint Convenor of
the SLoCaT Partnership at cornie.huizenga at slocatpartnership.org. For
information on SLoCaT see www.slocat.net

See www.uncsd2012.org for information on the Rio+20 UN Conference on
Sustainable Development

-- 
Cornie Huizenga
Joint Convener
Partnership on Sustainable, Low Carbon Transport
Mobile: +86 13901949332
cornie.huizenga at slocatpartnership.org
www.slocat.net


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