Kaohsiung 2010 Papers: Street sharing in Nepal

In most developing world cities, the vast majority of citizens walk as part of their daily social, recreational, and livelihood activities. Every trip begins and ends with a walking trip. Nearly all trips made by people entail some walking, either directly to a destination or to another mode of transport. In Kathmandu, large section of population prefers to walk. In fact, 18.1 percent of daily trips are made entirely on foot, and of the nearly 56.5 percent of the commuters who use different modes of public transport, a large percentage walk as part of their daily commute.

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World Transport Policy & Practice - Vol. 16, No. 2

The Journal of World Transport Policy and Practice is the long standing idea and print partner of World Streets and the New Mobility Agenda. The summer 2010 edition appears today, and in the article that follows you will find the lead editorial by founding editor John Whitelegg, along with abstracts of the principal contributions. (For a more complete introduction to WTPP click here.)

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1-minute to open eyes

We live at a time when the people at the top who have to make or influence decisions in our sector are time-starved, over-burdened and, truth to tell, not about to spend a lot of time reading, or even listening or otherwise trying to ingest the great glaciers of data views and recommendations that are about to inundate and eventually freeze them solid for more thousands of years. But for those of us who see ourselves as change-agents, we need to find ways to capture their attention in order to widen their intellectual pallet in order to draw their attention to a range of new ideas and alterative problem-solving approaches beyond the ones that normally inform (and limit) their choices. Well, what about a series of attention-grabbing, lesson-purveying one-minute movies that can get them thinking in broader terms? And better than that, share with their families and colleagues. Might we have a look and think about this together?

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Car Free Days 2010: Part 2. Thursday: A breakthrough strategy for reducing car dependence in cities

This is the full unedited text of the original presentation to the Ciudades Accesibles Congress in Toledo Spain organized by the Spanish Ministry of Public Works, Transport and the Environment, with the participation of Car Free Cities Initiative of the EuroCities program and the Direction General XI of the Commission of European Communities.

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Car Free Days 2010: Part 1. Origins, Timeline, Progress

"Every day is a great day to take a few cars off the street and think about it."
Here is how the Car Free Days movement got started and has taken shape over the last 16 years.  This is the first of a series of two articles which we update and post annually just prior to the September rush to get the latest batch of Car Free Day projects off the ground. We hope that these pieces and the references you find here are going to prove useful to those responsible for making a success of their Days in 2010. Getting a CFD right and making it a real success is no easy task and good knowledge of what has worked and not worked in the past should be useful.

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Victoria Transport Policy Institute Summer 2010 Newsletter

This carefully compiled seasonal report from Todd Litman of the Victoria Transport Policy Institute is a fine tool and up to date source guide for researchers and policy makers worldwide. We are pleased to present it in its entirety here, together with references you will find handy to take these entries further. Thanks for your continuing fine work Todd.

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For the latest on World Streets, please click to http://worldstreets.wordpress.com/

As of late June, we started to test and develop another -- and we believe considerably improved -- website and software platform for World Streets which you can now access freely at http://worldstreets.wordpress.com/. For all these weeks and until such time that we were completely satisfied with advantages of the new structure, we maintained the two in rough parallel. But as of today we now are ready to cut the link and formally move over the entire journal and its databases and working tools once and for all to the new address.

We hope you enjoy the new World Streets, find it a real improvement in clarity and usability, and as always that you will keep us informed of your thoughts, suggestions and proposals for what is, after all, the world's only independent sustainable transport collaborative newspaper.

But not to forget, there is a lot more to the New Mobility Agenda than just World Streets, so by way of reminder let us also draw your attention to the following projects and programs:

* The first international conference of the World Share/Transport Forum – which is taking place in Kaohsiung from 16 – 19 September. And if you can't join us in Kaohsiung, be sure that you check out the program at Www.kaohsiung.sharetransport.org (and if you prefer Chinese at http://www.kaohsiung-sharetransport.com.tw/)

* The New Mobility Partnerships collaborative program, for which you will find all the main details at www.newmobility.org

* The World Carshare Consortium – since 1999 at www.worldcarshare.com

* World Transport – the discussion group and site behind the Journal of World Transport Policy and Practice at www.worldtransportjournal.org

* The venerable World Car Free Days collaborative – at www.worldcarfreedays.com

* Value Capture/Tax Reform Forum at http://www.landcafe.org and its highly contentious discussion group at http://groups.yahoo.com/group/LandCafe/

All of these programs are continuing as indicated, and we hope we shall be seeing you there.

You can also follow World streets via

* Facebook at facebook.worldstreets.org

* Twitter at https://twitter.com/worldstreets

Eric Britton,
Managing Editor

| Skype: newmobility | +331 7550 3788 | 8, rue Jospeh Bara | Paris 75006 France

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This week's Social Space image - De Portugal, com amor

The power of images. We need a lot more than walls of words, reports and books to turn the world toward sustainability.  So to help our case we invite our readers to jump in and share with us striking "social space" graphics which illustrate the world's streets and all that takes place thereon in many places and in many ways. And lo and behold, from time to time some very nice stuff pops up on the screen in our challenging 990 × 180 pixels pixels format . This morning for instance we had the luck to receive and to be able to share with you the splendid street scene you see above, showing an intersection of bus services right in the middle of the beautiful city of Lisbon. And all this thanks to our colleague Miguel Barroso from Lisbon.

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What/who keeps holding back New Mobility reform?

If you get it, New Mobility is a no-brainer. However, while newmob is a great starting place, it is not going to get the job somehow miraculously done just because it is the only game in town when it comes to sustainable transport. We have a few potential sticking points here that need to be overcome first. Let's have a quick look.

After some years of talking with cities, and working and observing in many different circumstances, here are some of the barriers are most frequently encountered in trying to get innovative transportation reform programs off the ground, including even in cities that really do need a major mobility overhaul.

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The first World Share/Transport Forum meets in Kaohsiung from 16-19 September

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"Time to count the spoons": Alan Atkinson on sustainabilty back-peddling

Dr. Samuel Johnson reminded us some time back that "When a man proclaims his honor loudly at the table, it's time to count the spoons". Which is what our guest editorials Alan Atkisson is going for us today as he comments on loudly proclaimed sustainability initiatives from Europe and America. Oops. Something appears to be missing here.

Sustainability under assault

Reading the news has not been easy for champions of sustainability in recent weeks, at least in the Western World. That means the news has not been kind to the interests of future generations, to new economic thinking, to accelerated innovation, to long-term prosperity, or to life on Earth, for that matter. It almost feels as though sustainability itself is under assault, at least from some national governments -- just when its value in economic terms has been solidly established, and the need for it in environmental and social terms has risen dramatically.

Let's review the situation.

First, the new UK government axed the Sustainable Development Commission (www.sd-comission.org.uk). This Commission, led by Jonathan Porritt, has been an extraordinary source of innovative thinking and clear-sighted critique for the past decade. Its impact on the UK has been very important ... but its impact has also been global. And as a "cost-cutting" measure, it's wrong-headed.

The Commission was costing the UK government roughly 3 million pounds per year, but by following (some of) its advice on energy conservation and the like, the UK government was already saving many times that amount -- and could have saved a lot more.

Outside the UK, the Commission's reports helped to advance and even to reframe the debate on sustainability -- especially Commissioner Tim Jackson's landmark report, "Prosperity without Growth" (now a book, published by Earthscan. Hint: Download the original report free while the Commission's website is still working. Click here >> )

Across the pond in the United States of America, energy and climate change legislation died in the Senate -- despite the fact that a supposedly pro-climate-action majority of 60 Democrats sits there. Barring a political miracle, the Senate may have wasted the best historical opportunity to get something serious into US law, and it has at least wasted precious time.

Crossing the Atlantic again, France has earned positive headlines for its recent legislative commitment to sustainability, both its new "Grenelle" package of laws, and its recently released national strategy on "développement durable" (interestingly, many languages use a word meaning "durable" or "enduring" in place of "sustainable").

But at the same time, my colleagues in France tell me that actual money for sustainability programs has been drastically cut; and according to the French papers, the new national strategy lacks "any detail ... on how the necessary investments for the realization of its objectives are to be financed." (Les Echos, 27 July 2010)

Meanwhile, the news on the state of the planet has not been heart-warming, either. A recent global report on biodiversity carries the scary title "Dead Planet, Living Planet" -- a glass-half-empty message if ever there was one. Ironically, we are losing to fight to retain biodiversity, even as we get better at figuring out how much life on Earth is actually worth to us in cold, hard cash -- somewhere between 21 and 72 trillion dollars per year, according to the United Nations Environment Program's new report on The Economics of Ecosystems and Biodiversity. That's roughly equivalent to the entire annual Gross World Product ($58 trillion in 2008).

Meanwhile (again), a new NOAA report is out on climate change, and US and UK scientists are using words like "undeniable" and "glaringly obvious." Even Russia's President Medvedev is talking like a climate activist these days, as his country swelters in record-breaking heatwaves.

So ... what's a sustainability optimist to do, in the face of such pessimistic news?

Veteran planet-watcher Lester Brown, lecturing in Stockholm, was asked how he maintained optimism in the face of the gathering gloominess. "I get that question a lot, and I have a one-word answer," he joked. "Bourbon."

Lester's real answer, of course (both at that lecture, and as evidenced by his own years of extraordinary work), is not alcohol -- it's action.

And not just any action: strategic action, designed to create the most powerful impacts possible, in the shortest amount of time.

Because that's what we're all working for, and that's what the world needs.

Now more than ever.

# # #

About the author:

Alan AtKisson began professional work on sustainability in 1988, serving as executive editor of the pioneering journal In Context: A Quarterly of Humane Sustainable Culture. In 1990, he and other colleagues co-founded the Sustainable Seattle initiative, later recognized by the United Nations as a model project in urban sustainability and indicator development. Also in 1990, Alan began to introduce the concept of "sustainability change agents" through workhops and lectures, and to develop the tools and methods that are now called the ISIS Accelerator and used world wide. In 1992, Alan began consulting on sustainability and founded the small business that has grown into the AtKisson Group. - www.atkisson.com

A few closing words from Alan on their current work in this area:

At the moment, my publisher Earthscan and I are planning the re-launch of two of my books in new versions. Both of them are about what it takes to be optimistic and to continue making positive, strategic, accelerated change for sustainability -- no matter what the odds.

So be on the lookout this November for the new Believing Cassandra: How to be an Optimist in a Pessimist's World(you can already pre-order the fully updated new edition). Also, my second book, The ISIS Agreement, will appear in paperback then with a new introduction, cover ... and even a new title. I'll keep the (very optimistic) new title for the ISIS book secret for now ... but the new subtitle should give you a taste of it: "How to Make Positive Change in Difficult Times."

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"Time to count the spoons". Alan Atkinson on sustainabilety back-peddling

Dr. Samuel Johnson reminded us some time back that "When a man proclaims his honor loudly at the table, it's time to count the spoons". Which is what Alan AtKisson has to offer on the subject of back-peddling as he comments on loudly proclaimed sustainability initiatives from Europe and America.

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1-minute movies

If you click today to the home page of the 2010 Kaohsiung Conference of the World Share/Transport Forum at www.kaohsiung.sharetransport.org, you will see that the organizers have just this morning added the first of an intended new cycle of “1-minute movies” by way of livening up the conference preparations, and as a quick introduction to the concepts of sharing in transport as a sustainability strategy. We have long been proponents of the imaginative use of media of all sorts to get the messages of sustainable development and social justice out to a world that is for the most part more puzzled than antagonistic.
It is our dead-serious intention to make use of all the tools and tricks we can lay our hands on to get the basic message of the World Share/Transport Forum program and associated events and conferences across: namely, that we really should be trying to understand better what happens if people start to think more in terms of not things, physical objects, but of services, i.e., whatever it is that they really need.

Our goal in selecting these little films is not to try to convert people in a single minute or two to our priorities and our way of thinking, but rather to familiarize them just a bit in a soft way about the fact that there are, in fact, other ways of seeing and doing things when it comes to getting around in cities. We want to open a few doors, but no pushing.

We intend in this section to provide a certain number of very short videos that in our view can help get these points across. And since many in our audience at Kaohsiung are not familiar with English as their main working language, we shall try to limit ourselves to videos which are image- and not word-heavy. Today you have our first three candidates. Your comments are most welcome. Perhaps you will have some candidates to support the program. If so, you know where to find us.

- - - > Click here to go to the 1-minute movies. (See top menu, right)

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"They will solve Delhi’s problem of congestion for good."

Bravo! Bravissimo!!! I love this golden sentence (says he gritting his teeth). Solutions, solutions. It's a wonderful world.

If you recall you heard from us last week concerning the wondrous “Straddling bus" project that so surprisingly popped in from an ambitious (?!?) entrepreneur in China -- but not about to be undone by the competition to the north, here you have some comments coming from India about two miraculous "zip over" projects in one Indian city, Mumbai, which offer some new wrinkles on our "let's build our way out of it" approach to sustainable transportation. That said, I might add that we thought this particular horse was actually already dead -- but apparently there is still some twitching there. We should really be finding the way to put it out of its (our actually) misery.

Promises, promises... (via "India lives in her cities too!")

Two news reports in Mumbai this week promise drivers of personal vehicles the opportunity to "zip over" congested roads. The first project is a proposed flyover over the western railway line. The current underbridge across the train track is too narrow and prone to getting flooded during rains. In all fairness, I don't think that is so bad an idea. Train tracks have a tendency to break all connectivity between the eastern and western portions of the locality, and it does help if a sufficient number of bridges exist.

The other project is a 17 km freeway from downtown Mumbai (Colaba) to the residential suburb of Chembur – a middle-class residential suburb. This project will involve building over salt pan lands, and MMRDA will also be building elevated roads over very old and congested neighbourhoods where relatively poor people live.

But what interests me is the use of the phrase “zip over” in both cases. . . . Read More

via India lives in her cities too!

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1-minute movies

If you click today to the home page of the 2010 Kaohsiung Conference of the World Share/Transport Forum at www.kaohsiung.sharetransport.org, you will see that the organizers have just this morning added the first of an intended new cycle of "1-minute movies" by way of livening up the conference preparations and as a quick introduction to the concepts of sharing in transport as a sustainability strategy. We have long been proponents of the imaginative use of media of all sorts to get the messages of sustainable development and social justice out to a world that is for the most part more puzzled than antagonistic.

--> Read on:

"They will solve Delhi’s problem of congestion for good."

Bravo!  Bravissimo!!! I love this sentence (says he gritting his teeth). Solutions, solutions. It's a wonderful world.

If you recall you heard from us last week concerning the wondrous “Straddling bus" project that so surprisingly popped in from an ambitious (?!?) entrepreneur in China -- but not about to be undone by the competition to the north, here you have some comments coming from India about two miraculous "zip over" projects in one Indian city, Mumbai, which offer some new wrinkles on our "let's build our way out of it" approach to sustainable transportation. That said, I might add that we thought this particular horse was actually already dead -- but apparently there is still some twitching there. We should really be finding the way to put it out of its (our actually) misery.

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Kaohsiung 2010: The Third Way of getting around in cities

Share/transport -- the largely uncharted middle ground of low-carbon, high-impact, available-now mobility options that span the broad range that runs between the long dominant poles of "private transport" (albeit on public roads) and "mass transport" (scheduled, fixed-route, usually deficit-financed public services) at the two extremes. The third way of getting around in cities? Come to Kaohsiung in September and let's talk about sharing.

World Streets and the New Mobility Agenda have for a long time been aggressive supporters of the shared transport modes – carsharing, ridesharing, taxisharing, bikesharing, street sharing and the like. So it should surprise no one that we have gotten behind the concept of creating a World Share/Transport Forum and then, as the first major international event, collaborating with the City of Kaohsiung in Taiwan and the Chinese Institute of Transport (CIT) to organize the forthcoming Kaohsiung 2010 Share Transport conference that will be taking place from 16-19 September, in just 48 days from today. Want to follow it or better yet to get involved? Here you will find an introduction to the conference and its main parts, and for more we invite you to check out the website at www.kaohsiung.sharetransport.org. (Or if you prefer Chinese - http://www.kaohsiung-sharetransport.com.tw/)

First International Share/Transport Forum –
Kaohsiung City, Taiwan - 16 – 21 September 2010

1. Introduction
If you need milk every day would you buy a cow? Of course not -- anyway, where would you park your cow?

Why therefore do we insist on owning a car when what we actually want is mobility? Instead of parking hassles, with carsharing we have the use a car when we need it, but none of the tribulations or costs of ownership.

In some of the world’s most successful and livable cities, we are already entering into a world of new mobility practices that are changing the transportation landscape. It has to do with sharing, as opposed to outright ownership.

The city of Kaohsiung together with an international team from the Chinese Institute of Transport (CIT) and supported by the New Mobility Partnerships is organising three-day international forum to take place from 16 - 19 September 2010, in which professionals working at the leading edge of these matters will come together from a number of countries, to examine together the concept and practice of sharing transport in the 21st century -- and to discuss future applications for Taiwan, China, Asia and beyond.

Who should attend -

• Researchers, city administration, operators, large public sector employers, activists, NGOs, students, media, and suppliers to the sector

• From Taiwan, China, South-East Asia and all others interested

• Language: Chinese/English. Full translation of all sessions

• Conference venue: International Conference Hall - http://www.gardenvilla.com.tw/eng/index.php

Website/Details: www.kaohsiung.sharetransport.org and www.kaohsiung-sharetransport.com.tw (Chinese)

"On the whole, you find wealth more in use than in ownership."
- Aristotle. ca. 350 BC

2. Kaohsiung welcomes first World Share/Transport Forum


The Mayor and City Council of Kaohsiung are pleased to announce their hosting of the first World Share/Transport Forum from 16 to 19 September this year.

Transport sharing is an important worldwide trend, one that is already starting to reshape at least parts of some of our cities. It is a movement at the leading edge of our most successful (and wealthiest and livable) cities, but one which as yet is poorly understood.

The World Forum in Kaohsiung - the first of its kind – is bringing together leading thinkers and share/transport practitioners and authorities from across Taiwan, Asia and the world, to examine the concept of shared transport (as opposed to individual ownership) from a multi-disciplinary perspective, with a strong international and Chinese-speaking contingent.

The conference will delve into innovative trends and accomplishments of specific shared transport modes and their potential applications in the Taiwanese and East Asian context.

• How can carsharing succeed in Taiwan and China?


• Can ridesharing systems be developed for Taiwanese commuters?


• Has bikesharing in Kaohsiung and Taipei been a success -- and are there lessons from abroad to improve their operation?


• How can we include the taxi as a vital element of public transport?


• Share/Transport strategies for larger employers: Worker well-being and cost savings


• Redesigning city streets for new (shared) uses


• What are links between Share/Transport, public transport and city planning?


• What potential do innovative ICT applications offer Share/Transport?

These are some of the questions that leading international experts are coming to Kaohsiung to discuss at the conference. Contributors thus far include representatives from public agencies, universities, research teams, public service groups and operators from China, Colombia, France, Germany, Hong Kong, Italy, Japan, Singapore, the UK, and the USA, and of course Taiwan.

Places are limited. Discounts available for CIT members, Students and Early Bird bookings.

To book your place please complete the registration form overleaf or see further details at www.registration.kaohsiung.sharetransport.org



3. Conference program

Thursday, 16th September. International Conference Hall

09:00 Opening session : Share/Transport in the 21st century: Who is going to take the lead?

• Welcome Speeches (3)

Keynote addresses:

• What is S/T - International state of the art overview. Eric Britton (France/USA)


• Why Share/Transport in Taiwan and Asia? Jason Chang (Taiwan)


• Share transport and public health - WHO rep. to be confirmed


• Work plan for conference and associated events Susan Lin (Taiwan)

11:00~12:30 Session I: Carsharing (Car clubs in Britain.)
Session leaders: Michael Glotz-Richter, Germany. Lewis Chen, Singapore.

14:00~15:30 Session II: Ridesharing/Employer Share/Transport
Session leaders: Ali Clabburn (UK). Rory McMullan (UK/Taiwan)

16:00~17:30 Session III: Bikesharing (Public bicycle systems)
Session leaders: Eric Britton (France/USA). H.W. Chang (Taiwan)

Friday, 17th September. International Conference Hall

09:00~10:30 Session IV: DRTS and Taxi Sharing
Session leaders: (To follow)

11:00~12:30 Session V: Street-sharing. Integrating private, public and share transport in the city
Session leaders: Dorothy Chan (Hong Kong). David Ta-Wei Poo (Taiwan.) Paul Barter (Singapore)

14:00~15:30 Session VI: ICT applications for sharing transportation
Session leaders: Taka Morikawa (Japan). Jason Chang (Taiwan)

16:00~17:30 Session VII. The Fine Art of Sharing in transport: Behavior, communications, policy and practice
Session leaders: CarlosFelipe Pardo (Colombia). Paul Barter (Singapore). Eric Britton (France/USA).

17:30~18:30 Session VIII. Young researcher/cooperative program
Session leaders: Enrico Bonfatti (Italy). Rory McMullan (UK/Taiwan)

Saturday, 18th September. International Conference Hall

09:00~10:30 Session IX: Conclusions, Recommendations, Closing Strategy, Next Steps
Session leaders: CarlosFelipe Pardo (Colombia). Jason Chang (Taiwan).

11:00~12:30 Session X: Mayor's Roundtable
Moderator: David Ta-Wei Poo (Taiwan)
(Invitational event. Contact Help Desk for application.)

14:00~15:00 Session XI: Creating a New Mobility Management platform/network in Chinese
Session leaders: Enrico Bonfatti (Italy). Rory McMullan (UK/Taiwan)

15:30: Kaohsiung City visits (Details to be announced)

Sunday, 19th September. Kaohsiung Car Free Day

4. Speakers/Panelists

The Kaohsiung Task Force is the interdisciplinary expert team behind the conference, including the distinguished international speakers, contributors, lead panelists, and those directly involved in the organization of the event.

• For latest details on the international speakers and principal panelists, click to www.taskforce.kaohsiung.sharetransport.org

5. Conference Booking Form

Please book me for delegate participation in the 2010 World Share/Transport Forum

[ ___ ] Full Conference participation: 16-18 Sept. 2010

[ ___ ] Request invitation to Mayor's Round Table: 18 Sept. (Invitational event. Places limited)

[ ___ ] I plan to participate in the Kaohsiung Car Free Day ceremonies - 19 Sept.

Delegate Details

Name: __________________________________________________

Position: ________________________________________________

Organization: _____________________________________________

Address: _________________________________________________

Tel: ____________________ Email: ___________________________

Accommodation:

• I will need accommodation for the nights of [ _______ _________ ]

Payment Details

I enclose a check / please invoice me to the above address. Please make all checks payable to CIT - Chinese Institute of Transportation

• Early registration (before 1 September) TWD - 3,250.00 (US$ 100.00)


• After 1 September: TWD 5,000.00 (US$ 150.00)


• Kaohsiung residents - apply for free entry to following address


• Students: Supply proof of current registration

To book or if you require further information please contact international project coordinator:
Rory McMullan - roryer@gmail.com Tel. +44 (0) 7916 342 135 Skype: roryer

For online bookings please see - http://registration.kaohsiung.sharetransport.org/

· Has bikesharing in Kaohsiung and Taipei been a success, and are there lessons from abroad to improve their operation?

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Transport and the lock-in problem

Politicians are reluctant to confront the economic and environmental costs of transport. The task: to reduce the demand for mobility. I probably don't write about transport as much as I ought to, and that was brought home to me at an event on The Future of Transport in Leuven in Belgium, at which I was also a speaker. There's a case for regarding transport as a climate emergency, given that it accounts for about a quarter of Europe's carbon emissions, and that in the last decade (unlike pretty much every other sector) emissions from transport have continued to grow sharply. And before I continue, even if you’re a climate sceptic, this represents a significant policy issue: the transport sector (at least, the non-human powered transport sector) is 97% dependent on fossil fuels. As these become scarcer, more expensive, and more prone to interruption, we will have an incipient social and economic problem which is serious enough to prod policy makers.  … Read More

via thenextwave

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Transport, Mobility and/or Access – Technologies, Management and/or Behavior?

Part I: Getting it wrong from the start.
One of the great, long-proven truths of policy and practice in the transport field is the we all to often start out by jumping right into the middle of the problem set – instead of taking the time to sit back and figure out what really is going on. This genuinely disturbing tendency to premature postulation more often than not leads us to weak answers to important problems. Worse yet, this brain-light process all too often brings us to do just about the opposite of what the full problem set actually calls for.

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Honk! "Straddling" Bus? (Have a stupid weekend)

The happy life is one where every day something happens that makes us smile. Today we were blessed with this article that appeared in China Hush under the title  “Straddling” bus–a cheaper, greener and faster alternative to commute. Your editor was fascinated and hopes that you will be too.  Thank you Shenzhen Hashi Future Parking Equipment Co., Ltd.

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Transport and the lock-in problem

Politicians are reluctant to confront the economic and environmental costs of transport. The task: to reduce the demand for mobility. I probably don't write about transport as much as I ought to, and that was brought home to me at an event on The Future of Transport in Leuven in Belgium, at which I was also a speaker. There's a case for regarding transport as a climate emergency, given that it accounts for about a quarter of Europe's carbon emissions, and that in the last decade (unlike pretty much every other sector) emissions from transport have continued to grow sharply.

And before I continue, even if you’re a climate sceptic, this represents a significant policy issue: the transport sector (at least, the non-human powered transport sector) is 97% dependent on fossil fuels. As these become scarcer, more expensive, and more prone to interruption, we will have an incipient social and economic problem which is serious enough to prod policy makers. … Read full text of article

via thenextwave

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