Transport @ Abu Dhabi Ascent

Abu Dhabi Ascent, a special two-day high-level meeting, was held 4-5 May in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates, in preparation of the United Nations Secretary General’s Climate Summit on 23 September 2014. The meeting brought together ministers as well as business, finance, and civil society leaders to determine how their countries, businesses and organizations can become more involved in the various initiatives and partnerships under development for the September Summit. Please see Ascent Agenda to learn more about full program and speaker list. Also please see UNDP Administrator Helen Clark’sclosing remarks for an overview of the discussions at Abu Dhabi.

Transport was covered in the High Level Presentations on Ascent Action Areas on Sunday May 4 with Wu Hongbo (Under Secretary-General, United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs), Gunjan Parik (Director, Transportation Initiative at C40 Cities Climate Leadership Group), and Peter Bakker(President, World Business Council for Sustainable Development). In addition there were 4 break out sessions in which Transport related iniatives are presented:

Low Carbon Transport
Energy Efficiency
Urban Transport Solutions
Accelerating Action on Short Lived Climate Pollutants

In Abu Dhabi Ascent, representatives of private sector and the civil society organizations announced 31 initatives in 9 different high-impact areas. Transport was the second largest sector making 6 out of 31 initiatives in four areas; transportation, cities, energy and short-lived climate pollutants.

Please see the Ascent Guidebook for full list of climate initiatives.

1. Transportation

– International Union of Railways Initiative: Rail sector and transport authority partnership for substantial reduction in transport GHG emissions, achieved through improved rail sector efficiency, decarbonization of rail sector energy consumption and modal shift to rail

– For more information on the International Union of Railways Initiative, please click here

– Interview with Jean-Pierre Loubinoux, Director General, International Union of Railways

– UIC Presentation on “Low Carbon Rail of Transport Challenge” by Nick Craven

– International Association of Public Transport (UITP) Declaration and Commitments on Climate Leadership: Members (1,300 member companies from 92 countries) to demonstrate climateleadership, making voluntary commitments to reduce emissions orstrengthen climate resilience within their city and region in support of UITP’s goal to achieve a doubling in the market share of public transport worldwide by 2025.

– For more information on the International Association of Public Transport (UITP) Initiative, please click here

– Interview with Gunnar Heipp, Director of Strategy and Planning, Munich and Chairman of the UITP Sustainable Development Commission

– Presentation “UITP Declaration and Commitments on Climate Leadership” by Philip Turner

–Urban Electronic Mobility Vehicles Initiative: Governments, industry, finance and civil society to join or phase out conventionally fuelled vehicles and increase the share of electric vehicles in the total volume of individual motorized transport in cities to at least 30% by 2030, to achieve a 30% reduction of CO2 emissions in urban areas by 2050. This initiative is led by UN-Habitat.

– For more information on the Urban Electronic Mobility Vehicles Initiative, please click here

2. Cities

– Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) ‘Global BRT Alliance’:

Cities connect with private sector players and associations in the BRT sphere through a ‘Global BRT Alliance’ facilitating technical guidance and advisory services directly to cities for BRT planning by 2020. This initiative is led by UN-Habitat

– For more information on the Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) ‘Global BRT Alliance’ Initiative, please click here

EE Global Fuel

3. Energy Efficiency

Global Fuel Economy Initiative: Public-private partnership to double vehicle efficiency

– Interview with Sheila Watson, Executive Secretary of the Global Fuel Economy Initiative (coming soon)
– For more information on the GFEI Initiative, please click here.

4. Short-Lived Climate Pollutants

Green Freight Global Plan of Action: Committed governments and companies aim to expend and harmonize green freight programs that will generate reductions in black carbon and CO2 emissions from multimodal goods movement

– For more information on the Green Freight Initiative, please click here.