Transportation

The IPCC's ‘Global Warming 1.5 degrees’ report published last month was a clear warning of the ambitious action needed to prevent the worst of climate change. A swift shift away from fossil fuels is needed, but as Christiana Figueres observes, ‘the determinants of whether we head for 2C or for 1.5C are mainly political; they are not technical or economic.’ This observation rang true when visiting China last week to deliver the annual C40 Zero Emission Vehicle network workshop. Bringing together delegates from 11 global cities to problem solve and work together to transition to zero emission vehicles.

For more than a decade, C40 has been working with cities to develop and share policies and practices that help address climate change. We know that technological innovations cannot, in isolation, solve the challenges that cities face. Autonomous vehicle (AVs) technology is advancing at such a rate that it is now only a matter of time until AVs become the norm. Read more from C40 Executive Director Mark Watts. 

‘Liveable Streets’ is a seminal 1981 work by the urban designer and theorist Donald Appleyard that compared the experiences of people living on three similar streets in San Francisco. The main variable between the streets was different levels of car traffic: one with 2,000 vehicles per day, one with 8,700 vehicles per day and a third with 15,750 vehicles per day. Appleyard’s key finding was that residents of the high traffic streets were less likely to know their neighbours and more likely to feel lonely and isolated from their community. The evidence of the negative physical, mental and social effects caused by living near busy roads has only grown in the subsequent years. By Mark Watts, C40 Executive Director

Cities around the world are developing innovative projects to improve mobility. These projects are making cities more environmentally-friendly, more inclusive, and more people-centric, while addressing the twin challenges of growing urbanisation and intensifying climate change.