By Cornie Huizenga, Former Executive Director of Clean Air Asia, Secretary General of SLOCAT Partnership, Co-team leader of Asian Transport Outlook (ATO) and EST Expert

Keynote delivered at the occasion of the High-Level 16th Regional Environmentally Sustainable Transport (EST) Forum in Asia (10-12 December 2024, Manila, the Philippines)

I stand before you at the end of a journey of 28 years. In this 28 years I worked on strengthening governance and institutional capacity building, the operational business processes of the Asian Development Bank, forestry, air quality management and sustainable transport.

My role has been that of leading advocacy to inspire and catalyze action. I helped to create and led, till 2007, Clean Air Asia. I assisted the ADB, and several other multilateral development banks, in mainstreaming sustainable transport in their transport operations. I was instrumental in developing the Partnership on Sustainable, Low Carbon Transport (SLOCAT) of which I was the founding Secretary General till 2018. I have been associated with  this regional Environmental Sustainable Transport Forum since its start in 2003. Lastly, I was one of the initiators and the co-team leader of the Asian Transport Outlook till March of this year.

Today, I will share with you some reflections on where I believe our advocacy on air quality and especially sustainable transport has been successful but also where our advocacy has met its limitations and what needs to change to increase its relevancy and impact.

To realize cleaner air and sustainable transport clear messages are needed, which convince governments, the private sector and  households to change behavior and act. Such messaging should point out why current practices are unsustainable and provide stakeholders in the region  with realistic alternatives that will lead to positive change.  We have found the former – what is not working, the doom and gloom part -, the most easy. We have also been fairly good in spelling out what we would like the future to be, the shining city on the hill.  However, where we are running into serious problems is how to get to this better, brighter future.

Asia is predominantly still a developing region, in many parts with a growing population and rapid urbanization. Asian countries, rightfully want to, and need to, continue grow their economies to eliminate poverty and improve the quality of life for their citizens.  We have been struggling how to reflect and articulate this in our communication on cleaner air and sustainable transport.

Our advocacy, especially that on sustainable transport, has been based on the Avoid, Shift, Improve approach.  This has been very effective in communicating the need for a different type of transport sector but it does not really help Transport ministers or mayors in growing their transport sector and provide better access for the millions of people in the rural and urban areas of Asia who at present still lack basic access to good quality transport infrastructure and services.  How can we ensure the active involvement and support of ministries of transport and local authorities for sustainable transport if we do not respond to their overall priority which is to develop and grow their transport infrastructure and services?  Yes we should continue to call for more and better sidewalks, bike lanes, railways, and public transport systems but we will also need to agree that it is important to build new roads or expand the capacity of existing roads.

Globally, climate change has been far more successful in capturing the spotlight as a driver for change than sustainable development.  As a consequence far more attention is being given to  reducing emissions as being called for by the Paris Agreement on Climate Change than to improving access as being called for by the Sustainable Development Goals.

Developed countries, generally have more mature transport systems, and their first priority is to reduce the carbon footprint of their existing transport systems. This also helps to explain the overemphasizing of electric mobility that can be seen in global discussions and advocacy on sustainable transport in recent years.

The move to the political right in several countries in Europe and the Americas has elevated migration as a leading topic in the public debate. This has been at the expense of climate change and sustainable development. This undermines the resolve of the global community to implement global agreements on climate change and sustainable development.

Now to the big question, has our advocacy had the impact that we envisaged? I am proud to see that both Clean Air Asia and the SLOCAT Partnership are thriving and that they continue to help drive regional and global  action on air quality and sustainable transport.  It is good to see that the transport community has gotten its feet between the door in the UNFCCC process and that air quality is benefitting through the co-benefits concept. The Decade of Sustainable Transport starting in 2026, proves that the UN system understands the need for sustainable transport. Sustainable transport is now a leading paradigm for all the development banks including ADB and AIIB.  All of these were aided by the unprecedented USD 178 billion commitment for more sustainable transport, announced at the Rio+20 conference in 2012, which I helped to conceive.  I am proud of my continued engagement in the regional EST Forum, which is increasingly setting the policy agenda on sustainable transport in Asia.

It is fitting to deliver these remarks in the home of the Asian Development Bank, which has been my steadfast and supportive partner throughout the last 28 years.  ADB instrumental for the establishment of Clean Air Asia , the SLOCAT Partnership, and the Asian Transport Outlook. Increasingly, it has also supported the EST Forum. I would like to call out Jamie Leather, and his predecessors,  who always understood how it was also in the self-interest of ADB to support global and regional advocacy on air quality and sustainable transport.

But is transport more sustainable now?  That depends on what topic and countries you look at. Some observations for Asia:

• Improvements in both urban and rural access have been made, although with considerable regional variation, yet 400 million lack rural access and 1.4 billion lack access to urban transit as defined in the targets of the Sustainable Development Goals
• The number of vehicles on the road in Asia has more than quadrupled since 2000 with the number of vehicles increasing from 275 million in 2000 to 1.3 billion in 2022. Yet, air pollution from transport has reduced considerably across the board in Asia proving the relevance of policy and regulatory action.
• Road safety continues to be one of the leading causes of death with 700,000 number of fatalities due to road crashes and an estimated 28 million serious injuries.
• Greenhouse gas emissions from transport in Asia have not peaked yet but there has been an almost 50%reduction in the expected growth of transport related GHG emissions.

If we look closer at these successes and failures in realizing cleaner air and sustainable transport in Asia there is one overriding factor that explains whether countries and cities are making progress and that is national and local leadership.

It is this emphasis on national and local leadership that has characterized the approach of the regional Environmentally Sustainable Transport (EST) Forum since its inception in 2003.  Through its 10 year declarations with key targets the EST forum has developed a policy and assessment framework that is appropriate to the evolving development status of Asia.

The EST Forum and the Aichi 2020-2030 Declaration, which we are discussing in this event, is a unique catalyst for action on sustainable transport because it:

• Integrates sustainable development and climate change in its objectives and activities
• Brings transport and environment ministries together and by also combining national and local governments it enables an appropriate sectoral approach
• Puts countries and policies at the heart of the discussion, this rather than other efforts that assume that global and regional approaches are the way to success

This is where I am speaking directly to the national and local decision makers  taking part in this Forum and that have endorsed the Aichi Declaration 2020-2030 on sustainable transport. It is your actions that will help decide the rate of progress on cleaner air and more sustainable transport in Asia.  Congratulations are in order for the Ministry of Environment of Japan for its unwavering support for the EST process since its inception in 2003.  It is encouraging that regional organizations like ADB and AIIB are also increasingly supporting the EST process.  This should be a sign for other organizations to line up their support for regional and national efforts to clean up the air and make sustainable transport a reality. Ideally, this should lead to a further and deepening of the institutionalization of the EST process in Asia and it should be actively considered to replicate the EST process in Africa and Latin America.

Countries and cities that have strong institutions in the transport sector, with well-developed legislation and policies on transport, backed by adequate transport related financing frameworks are doing better than when these enabling conditions were not present.

These seem to be self-evident truths but I believe that more can be done by the international air quality and sustainable transport community in their advocacy to help put in place these three pillars of effective action on institutional capacity, policies and financing:

• Far too little has been done to help countries and cities to develop strong institutions with adequate capacities. Donor organizations like ADB, World Bank or AIIB do not hesitate to provide loans that run in billions for the development of new transport infrastructure. Nowadays this also includes separate loans of hundreds of millions for the detailed design of transport infrastructure. Why not also include capacity development as part of transport loans.
• Resources for advocacy are limited and as a consequence too often the choice by international NGOswas made to focus on a global and regional approaches in advocacy.  To realize strong national and local level policies strong and vibrant civil society organizations are a prerequisite.  The global advocacy community is struggling on how to best  connect with, and support, national and local organizations working on air quality and sustainable transport. On the topic of policies, too much attention  is being given to the coverage of transport in Nationally Determined Contributions to the UNFCCC and not enough on national transport policies.   If national policies  are OK, NDCs will follow.
• Probably my most controversial statement of today is that financing of sustainable transport is NOT a climate finance issue.  In my view even with the best possible negotiating outcome climate finance will provide only a small part of the overall financing need to realize sustainable transport in the Asian region.

Effective advocacy needs to be evidence based.  The Asian Transport Outlook, or Asian Transport Observatory as it is known now, and one of my last projects is, I believe, an example of successful evidence building.  ATO does not engage in advocacy, yet it is critical for the advocacy movement to have a detailed picture of transport sector.  The ATO builds on the conceptual approach towards mapping the transport sector, developed by the late Lee Schipper.

The ATO puts the transport sector itself  (structure and activity) at the heart of its efforts and is not obsessed by climate change or another negative externality of the transport sector.  It maps and links data and policies. It documents history, present and future outlook of the transport sector. It acknowledges the diversity among regions, countries and cities.

To conclude, some final words of advice and encouragement to all the advocates on sustainable transport here in the room.

The world we live in is complicated and sectors in our economies are increasingly interconnected. It is important to acknowledge these interconnections and where relevant develop policies and actions that cut across sectors. Yet, I feel strongly, that a sectoral approach, that puts transport institutions and transport policies at the heart of our advocacy effort is key to move ahead with our efforts to work towards a sustainable transport sector.  The development and maintenance  of transport infrastructure and services that provide access to goods and services, in support of economic and social development is the key deliverable for the transport sector.  And yes, this should be done in a manner that is environmentally, socially and economically sustainable. However, environmental sustainability and more specifically climate change, can’t be the overall driver for the advocacy movement on sustainable transport.

Finding the right, sectoral, message is not enough. More attention needs to be given to scaling up impact of our advocacy work. Change on the ground requires better

national and local institutions and capacity, enabling legislative and policy frameworks, and catalyzing financing arrangements. To accomplish this the advocacy movement on sustainable transport needs to grow globally, regionally but especially also at the national and local level.  Together, with national and local governmental transport stakeholders it needs to convince multi- and bilateral development organizations to agree to allocate substantively more resources for strengthening institutional and organizational capacity in the transport sector.   An example of such an increased commitment would be a pledge by multilateral development organizations to allocate 1% of all transport lending during the upcoming UN Decade of Sustainable Transport (2015-2036) to institutional development and capacity building.

To achieve the change we all want you will need to find the courage and skills to color outsides the lines. Existing global, regional , national and local governance arrangements on sustainable development and climate change are not always conducive for effective action on sustainable transport.  Continued lobbying within the existing structures and processes is important but if we do not believe that these conducive for the change we want we should not hesitate to work towards a reform of structures and processes. This will require a long march through the institutions. In the coming years I will be happy to observe how the younger generation embarks on this journey of change.