SLOCAT Secretary General Carly Gilbert-Patrick has co-authored a new op-ed for IISD’s SDG Knowledge Hub with Rana Adib, Executive Director of REN21.
The piece makes a simple argument. Fifty years after the first oil shock, fossil fuels still supply 95% of transport energy. That share has barely moved in five decades. Every crisis since 1973 was supposed to be the last. Each one passed, prices stabilised, and the dependence held.
What is different now is that the alternatives exist, they are cheaper, and they are ready. Renewable electricity already beats fossil power in most markets. Walking, cycling and public transport can cut urban transport emissions by 20% to 50%, and can be built fast. The constraint was never financial. It is political.
The op-ed sets out four priorities for governments, from a unified global transport goal to phasing out fossil fuel subsidies and building the Santa Marta process and the Fossil Fuel Treaty into the Paris architecture.
