Two weeks after 175 government representatives came together in New York City to sign the historic Paris Climate Agreement, leaders are gathering in Washington, D.C. to advance concrete actions that will make the agreement a reality.

On May 5-6 leaders from national and local governments, civil society, academia, and the private sector, are participating in the Climate Action 2016 Summit, an event sponsored by various partners, including World Bank Group President Jim Yong Kim, UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, and the UN Special Envoy for Cities and Climate Change Michael Bloomberg.  

While the challenges to tackle climate change span numerous sectors and require actions on multiple fronts, including in agriculture and energy, one area that is crucial for lowering the world’s carbon footprint is transportation.  

“We will be outlining here, at this conference, the main principles for a plan to transform the world’s transport systems,” said President Kim in his opening remarks. “We are calling it ‘sustainable mobility for all’ – it means moving people and goods in an accessible, efficient and safe way to help cut poverty, cut emissions and increase resilience to a changing climate.”

Speaking on behalf of the COP22 Presidency, H.E. Dr. Hakima El Haite, Minister-in-charge of the Environment of the Kingdom of Morocco, said that “Transport, like any other sectors which are responsible for gas emissions, needs governments with a vision, needs innovation, and needs actions.”

“We should establish the link between sustainable transportation and countries’ national-determined contributions because 70 per cent of the NDCs include transport (…),” noted El Haite. “We should establish the link between sustainable transportation and the whole vision for the transformation of society, and the goals of the Paris Climate Agreement.”

Not business as usual

Today, transport accounts for nearly a quarter of energy-related global greenhouse gas emissions. With the global population set to rise to 9.6 billion by 2050, business as usual will increase emissions from transport to 33% and the number of vehicles on the road could double to two billion by 2030. This will also threaten road safety, as road crashes already claim some 1.3 million lives every year and injure some 50 million people worldwide. The lack of road safety also costs up to 5 percent of countries’ GDP, mostly affecting the poorest ones.

“We can and must enter a new era in mobility. Technologies necessary to significantly reduce the footprint of transport and to make transport accessible to all already exist,” said Denis Coderre, Mayor of Montreal, Canada. “The new eco-friendly electric public transit network proposed for the Montreal region is one example of what can be done. To bring these projects to scale, with need to unite behind a clear vision and clear targets.”

Developing countries, which still face a large transport infrastructure gap, have the opportunity to leap frog car-dependent transport and adopt multimodal strategies that reduce pollution, energy consumption and congestion, while increasing road safety and boosting economic growth. But they must make these choices now because today’s transport investments will determine the mobility patterns and the greenhouse gas emissions of tomorrow.

Four action areas

Making mobility more sustainable translates into transport systems that are more accessible, efficient, safer, and climate responsive. These four action areas are already embedded in the Sustainable Development Goals and Paris Climate Agreement. And many countries are already implementing projects that aim to realize them.

In Rio de Janeiro, for example, the World Bank is helping the government to upgrade and green the city’s rail system by funding more than 100 new energy efficient trains to improve services and reduce travel time for low-income families living on the city’s outskirts. This will increase people’s access to jobs, schools, and health care. And it will help reduce 93.700 tons of greenhouse gas emissions, equivalent to taking off the road some 25,000 gasoline passenger cars per year.

And on road safety the World Bank is fully supportive of the UN Decade of Action on Road Safety (2011-2020), which aims to halve deaths and injuries from road traffic crashes and save 5 million lives by 2020. The World Bank-led multi-donor Global Road Safety Facility is providing to more than 20 countries with technical assistance and advice to implement stronger safety measures on their roads.

Urgent & bold action

In order to achieve sustainable mobility, however, public and private sector stakeholders need to seize the momentum and be ambitious. While last year proved crucial to laying out the vision for sustainable development – from the adoption of the Sustainable Development Goals in New York in September to the COP21 in Paris in December – now is the time for action.

“If we can join up all our efforts to make global mobility more sustainable, we stand to improve the lives of billions of people across the world – in terms of health, environment and quality of life while also tackling climate change,” said Laura Tuck, World Bank Vice President for Sustainable Development.

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Towards Sustainable Mobility

Brief

Meeting the Sustainable Development Goals and the Climate targets agreed on by most countries in 2015 will require bold and ambitious action across all sectors of the economy, but particularly transportation.

Long-term mobility patterns and future level of greenhouse gas emissions are determined by today’s transport investment choices. It is estimated that the transport sector contributes about 23 percent of energy-related CO2 emissions. 

With one billion cars already on the road – and another billion to be added by 2050 – it is crucial to support the transition toward sustainable mobility by designing efficient public transport systems and policies to avoid unsustainable lock-ins.

Urban air pollution, for example, largely from transport, leads to the death of an estimated 800,000 people each year. And road accidents claim 1.3 million lives every year and injure some 50 million people worldwide – 90 percent of them in developing countries. The lack of road safety costs countries between 1 and 5 per cent of GDP.

Developing countries, which still face a large transport infrastructure gap, have the opportunity to leap frog car-dependent transport and adopt multimodal strategies that reduce pollution, energy consumption and congestion, and increase road safety, while achieving economic growth and improving people’s wellbeing.

If transformed, the transport sector can hold the key to reducing the emissions trajectory.

How the World Bank is helping

The World Bank is helping countries enhance the sustainability of their transport systems. Concretely, this means making mobility more accessible, more efficient, safer, and more climate friendly. This is done through assistance on policy design and implementation, as well as project interventions tailored to specific country needs.

Universal Access: The United Nations Sustainable Development Goal 9 calls for equitable access for all to infrastructure. By investing in public transport projects, such as bus rapid transit, metro and railways, and in the construction of rural roads, we help to increase access to transport, especially for the bottom 40 percent of the population. In Burundi, for example, we are helping to build resilient transportation infrastructure and drainage in greater Bujumbura, so the roads are kept accessible and clear of landslide debris or flood damage. 

Efficiency: Improvements in transport efficiency unlock capital for new investment and directly support sustainable development. Seventy percent of fuel energy, for instance, is lost in engine and driveline inefficiencies. Therefore, efficient mobility solutions minimize use of energy, and address passenger and freight transport needs with market-oriented services. In Nigeria, for example, a Bus Rapid Transit system has moved 400 million passengers in the last five years, reducing travel time, fares, GHG emissions and road accidents.

Safety: The multi-donor Global Road Safety Facility works with clients to mainstream road safety into transport projects. GRSF provides technical assistance and advisory services to help countries make their roads safer, through a holistic approach. Our interventions in client countries focus on all components of an effective road safety policy: institutions, infrastructure, behavior, enforcement, and post-crash care. Past the midpoint of the UN Decade of Action on Road Safety, much work remains to help countries meet their goal of halving deaths and injuries from road traffic crashes and saving 5 million lives by 2020.

The World Bank-led GSRF and donor partners, for example, supported the assessment of more than 40,000 km of roads for stronger safety measures in 13 countries, including the Philippines, India and Brazil. Similarly, GRSF supported the establishment of a regional road safety observatory in Latin America to improve data collection, along with capacity building in more than 20 countries.

Climate responsive: We help mitigate the climate impact of transport projects through better land-use planning, logistics, ICTs, and by shifting to lower-carbon transportation such as rail and waterways. We help design mobility solutions that are resilient to climate impacts and provide greater access, efficiency and safety, all in a climate-friendly way.

The Wuhan Urban Transport Project in China has helped the city build 10 new bus depots and terminals to attract mass transit users and stem the rising tide of cars. As a result, the public transport network has expanded and bus ridership has increased by 40 percent. The project also helped build or revitalize cycling and walking paths, as well as training local officials on how to plan and develop sustainable urban transport options.