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Abu Dhabi Ascent
4 May 2014 @ 12:00 am
Abu Dhabi Ascent is a special two-day high-level meeting which will be 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 will bring 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.
The agenda of the Ascent meeting includes Key Note speeches, high-level presentations from political and business leaders and announcements of initiatives to catalyze climate action. Some of the highlighted speakers include Al Gore, Former Vice President of United States of America; H.E. Tony Blair, former Prime Minister of Greater Britain and Northern Ireland, Paul Polman CEO of Unilever and Chairman, World Business Council for Sustainable Development and Joan Clos, Executive Director of UN-Habitat. For full list of speakers is please click here.
In Abu Dhabi Ascent, representatives of private sector and the civil society organizations will be announcing 31 initatives in 9 different high-impact areas. (See full list of initiatives) Transport is the second largest sector making 6 out of 31 initiatives in three areas:
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
- International Association of Public Transport (UITP) Declaration and Commitments on Climate Leadership: Members (1,300 member companies from 92 countries) to demonstrate climate leadership, making voluntary commitments to reduce emissions or strengthen 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.
- 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.
- 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.
2. Energy Efficiency
- Global Fuel Economy Initiative: Public-private partnership to double vehicle efficiency
3. 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