The Paris climate agreement signed by 175 nations last month will not meet its goals unless climate-smart, energy-efficient transportation systems become the new normal in many of the world’s urban centers. To help make that happen, the world’s largest multilateral donor is proposing a new “global coalition” of world leaders to move the sustainable transportation agenda forward.
“We have reached a tipping point,” Nancy Vandyke, lead economist for the World Bank’s Transport and Information and Communication Technologies Global Practice told Devex. “Now it’s no longer a question of talking. Now it’s a question of moving into action and that needs leadership — senior leadership.”
This November, United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon’s High-Level Advisory Group on Sustainable Transport will expire and is expected to issue a final set of recommendations for policymakers. Recommendations, however, will not be enough to maintain momentum and continuity in the sustainable transportation agenda, according to Vandyke.
About the author
Jeff Tyson@jtyson21
Jeff is a former global development reporter for Devex. Based in Washington, D.C., he covers multilateral affairs, U.S. aid, and international development trends. He has worked with human rights organizations in both Senegal and the U.S., and prior to joining Devex worked as a production assistant at National Public Radio. He holds a master's degree in journalism from Columbia University and a bachelor’s degree in international relations and French from the University of Rochester.
