Op-Ed: To Fight Climate Change, Think Politics First, and Often

By Nathan Lobel, Columbia Center on Sustainable Investment|Feb. 26, 2019

In October, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) reported that we have little more than a decade to stave off climate catastrophe. Avoiding such a fate, the panel warned, “would require rapid and far-reaching transitions in energy, land, urban and infrastructure (including transport and buildings), and industrial systems… unprecedented in terms of scale.”

Punctuating a year of natural and political climate-related disasters, the IPCC report sparked renewed calls for action. Economists, environmentalists, and policy elites took to the nation’s opinion pages with a common prescription: to fight climate change, Congress should put a price on carbon, thus “internalizing” the social cost of fossil fuel consumption.

From one perspective, converging on carbon pricing makes lots of sense — after all, carbon prices are often thought to be the most efficient means to mitigate climate change. But, despite its theoretical utility, carbon pricing has also struggled to deliver the real and drastic emissions reductions that we so desperately need.

THE FIVE PERCENT CHALLENGE (continued)

 * * Very rough first draft.  Requiring careful rewrite for content and clarity.   * *

CLIMATE/NEW MOBILITY  2019-2020 EMERGENCY ACTION PLAN

If we knew what it was we were doing, it would not be called research, would it?  (Attributed to A. Einstein)

 

Working Notes: Building Blocks:

The sources,  references and links that follow here – we call them building blocks or parts of the much larger puzzle – are presented here in first working draft form and are intended to be useful to inform and guide students, researchers, concerned citizens and others interested in getting up to speed on the wide range of challenging topics that need to be brought in to the analysis and eventual work plan for reducing greenhouse gas emissions from the local transport sector by a radical target and in a single year . These references include a considerable variety of issues, hints and developments (examples, free public transport, economic levers, value capture, full gender parity, etc., etc.) which have important roles to play in this wholesale reconstruction of the new mobility ecosystem.

WORLD CLIMATE EMERGENCY

PROFILE: Cambridge City Council’s Climate Change Strategy

Cambridge drivers spend a whopping 23 days a year queuing in traffic

Cambridge has been named the congestion capital of the UK – weeks after the council announce ‘peak hour’ parking charges

ANNUAL CLIMATE CHANGE STRATEGY, CARBON MANAGEMENT PLAN AND CLIMATE CHANGE FUND UPDATE REPORT

FIVE PERCENT CLIMATE/NEW MOBILITY EMERGENCY CHALLENGE: Cross-cutting issues, sources and strategies

 * * THIS IS A ROUGH FIRST DRAFT. REQUIRES TOTAL REWRITE   * *

2019 Climate/New Mobility Emergency Action Plan & Demonstration

If we knew what it was we were doing, it would not be called research, would it? (Attributed to Albert Einstein)

The sources,  references and links that follow here – we think of them as building blocks – are presented here in first working draft form and are intended to serve to inform and guide  students, researchers, concerned citizens and others who are interested in getting up to speed on the wide range of challenging topics that need to be brought in to the analysis and eventual work plan for reducing greenhouse gas emissions from the local transport sector by a radical target and in a single year . These references include a considerable variety of issues, hints and developments (examples, free public transport, economic levers, value capture, full gender parity, etc., etc.) which have important roles to play in this wholesale reconstruction of the new mobility ecosystem.

Transport and Climate Change: 2006 Perspectives

Here we are, it’s 2019, but how did all this look a dozen years ago? In this broad-based overview article published in 2006, Professor Lee Chapman of the School of Geography, Earth and Environmental Science at University of Birmingham,  reviews the impact of various modes of transport with respect to climate change inducing greenhouse gas emissions and discusses ways in which society can adapt to reduce the impacts. Let’s take a look and see what has changed, what has been done, and what has been learned..

This paper reviews the impact of various modes of transport with respect to climate change inducing greenhouse gas emissions and discusses ways in which society can adapt to reduce the impacts.

Getting around in the New Mobility Agenda: Mobility modes and strategies

YOUR INVITATION: WORLD STREETS 2021 OPEN COLLABORATIVE CLIMATE/MOBILITY CHALLENGE

. . . invitation to join an open collaborative action plan to cut GHG emissions from mobility sector in cities by 5% starting in 2021.

 “You never change things by fighting the existing reality.  To change something, build a new model that makes the existing model obsolete.” – Buckminster Fuller

Climate/Space/Mobility Action Plan: 2021

EXEC SUM: This open collaborative project just getting underway on World Streets aims to demonstrate how cities can reduce greenhouse gas emissions from the mobility sector by at least five percent in the first year after startup. And this by working from a well-prepared two-pronged push and pull strategy based on a combination of (a) sharp VKT  reductions  (Vehicle Kilometers Traveled) and (b) an expanding ecosystem of Better Choices while working with proven, cost-effective, available technologies and processes.

The project aims to get sharp, measurable results in short time with an approach that is, we argue, Better, Faster and Cheaper — and through this basically reshaping the city’s basic mobility ecosystem.   This bold initiative is only possible with very strong leadership and commitment, high technical competence, and an exceptional ability to  communicate and engage the population in a fully equitable and  positive manner.

COLLABORATIVE STARTUP: Now seeking critical feedback on working materials and proposals, collaborators, presentation opportunities, partners and eventual demonstration projects and sponsors.

Like this:

The Planner’s Dilemma: The Six Circles of Human Behavior

 

Thus, we need to understand the underlying questions: Why do we do what we do?  When it comes our transport and mobility choices, why are there such huge variance in values, dreams, behavior and choices from culture to culture?  Why do we insist on leaving our car in a parking space even though it is clearly marked for handicapped drivers?  Fail to give priority and space to pedestrians and cyclists?  Insist on staying in our cars when our government is investing heavily in public transport?  Why are we so tightly bound up in existing patterns, even when it is clear to all that the present situation is not working, including for us, to fight proposed changes tooth and nail?

The point is that none of this is accidental.  It is central. It is “normal”–  and in that  it brings us to the big question that transport planners and policy makers must be ready to ask: Why do we do what we do?  What determines our values and dispositions?  And how does this in turn determine our behavior and choices when it comes to matters of how we get around in our day to day lives?

Putting World Streets to work (Opening Day 2008 perspectives)

The editor, Paris, 30 March 2008:

If this is your first visit to World Streets, you may find it useful to check out the following to get a feel for how this is supposed to work.

Heavy traffic on the way to sustainable cities and sustainable lives. . .

The Planet’s Sustainable Transport Newspaper.
Welcome in an information-overload age to World Streets: the 21st century weekly newspaper that has a single job: to provide our world-wide readers with high quality, readable, concise information, food for thought, surprises and leads specifically on the topics of sustainable mobility, sustainable cities and sustainable lives, world-wide.

World Streets is an independent, internet-based collaborative knowledge system specifically aimed at informing policy and practice in the field of sustainable transportation, and as part of that sustainable cities and sustainable lives. We want to make sure that World Streets is a good read, and a fast one, for our overloaded colleagues working on these issues in cities and countries around the world, as well for others trying to follow the full range of issues involved.

World Streets/Social Networking ABCs

In our world-wide outreach to readers we are trying to put to work the full range of available contact and sharing tools to best serve and to make best use of these carefully developed networks. Among them the dozen-plus focused Facebook Groups which seem to lend themselves pretty well to these purposes, and also LinkedIn, Google+, YouTube, Scribd, Picasa (public photo galleries) and Twitter (still something of which we are hard pressed to see the fit, but one perseveres).

Reading World Streets in Translation

Have you ever had the opportunity to meet someone who has a lot to say about things that interest you very much, but who does not particularly well master your best language (or vice versa). What happens? Well, it depends on your personality type. Many people, perhaps most of us, would probably find it just too uncomfortable to try a real conversation, so after a bit of time either move respectfully into a mutual silence or venture to make a simple point from time to time on the grounds that this is about the best you can do.

Here is the Future of Car Sharing — and Carmakers should be Terrified (PS. They are!)

Looking for a share car in Moscow this morning? A sample of the 28k cars waiting for your call

Moscow’s sharing boom shows how quickly consumers can abandon the traditional car.

By Ilya Khrennikov. February 8, 2019

This from Bloomberg rings many bells and is just too good to be passed up for our students and readers.  Right up the middle of World Streets long time position on the steady global shift from ownership to use in the cities/car nexus , it is thus passed on here with thanks to the author and the publisher. The complete article with photos, graphics, a short video and references is available from Bloomberg at https://bloom.bg/2UPplxmz .   Let’s have a look.

Online List of 219 Available World Climate Change Initiatives *

Climate Action Plan (CAP)

A Climate Action Plan (CAP) is a framework of strategies intended to guide efforts for climate change mitigation. More specifically, a climate action plan is a detailed and strategic framework (ecosystem) for measuring, planning, and reducing Green House Gas (GHG) emissions and related climatic impacts. It can be scoped and carried at any of a wide range of geographic or government levels: national, regional, cities or even neighborhoods or eco-districts.  No less, such an action plan can be carried out by and at the levels of large or smaller companies, employers, cultural centers and events, schools and universities, and even families or individuals.

As an example: Municipalities design and utilize climate action plans as customized road maps for making informed decisions and understanding where and how to achieve the largest and most cost-effective emissions reductions that are in alignment with other municipal goals. Climate action plans, at a minimum, include an inventory of existing emissions, explicit reduction goals, targets, and timetables, and analyzed and prioritized reduction actions. Ideally, a climate action plan also includes an implementation strategy that identifies required resources and funding mechanisms.

Help from Wikipedia

* Useful tools and references from Wikipedia, http://bit.ly/2Bre9A1

Time to make bus travel free, says Friends of the Earth

 

– By Ekklesia reporter. Feb 6, 2019 – http://www.ekklesia.co.uk/node/27675 

The latest government figures show that transport was the largest source of climate changing greenhouse gases in the UK. Transport, mostly passenger cars, makes up more than a third of total emissions.

To coincide with the publication of these figures, Friends of the Earth, along with researchers at think-tank Transport for Quality of Life have released new research: Transforming public transport: Regulation, spending and free buses for the under 30s. The findings show that for climate change reasons at least a 20 per cent reduction in car journeys is necessary, even with a faster switch to electrics cars and a more rapid decarbonisation of the electricity grid. This reduction requires a radical re-imagining of transport which would also realise the numerous other benefits of traffic reduction, for example to public health.

Mike Childs, Head of Research at Friends of the Earth, said: “It’s an idea whose time has well and truly arrived. Free bus travel for the under 30’s at first, before widening the scheme, would make for more livable cities and cut damaging greenhouse gas emissions.”

WORLD STREETS CLIMATE COLLABORATIVE PROJECT PHASE 1: TIME FOR A COMMUNICATIONS CHECK

* * * WORLD STREETS 2019 CLIMATE ACTION NETWORK * * *

 

As we gear up for this open collaborative world-wide Climate/Mobility Challenge 2019 project — see http://bit.ly/2D8DNJR for some first references — this would seem like an ideal time to ensure that the roughly fifteen thousand-plus international colleagues are efficiently connected, taking advantage of the free communications packages which are at our disposal. So, this is to invite you to get online at your convenience with Skype and WhatsApp, both of which we have used extensively and easily for some years and for both free one-on-one and group communication. Quickly now:

Women, Climate Change and . . . Leadership

[From Wikipedia on Women, Leadership and Climate Change (2019 State of the art at http://bit.ly/2HMbKVZ)]

Introduction: The contributions of women in climate change have received increasing attention in the early 21st century. Feedback from women and the issues faced by women have been described as “imperative” by the United Nations and “critical” by the Population Reference Bureau. A report by the World Health Organizationconcluded that incorporating gender-based analysis would “provide more effective climate change mitigation and adaptation.

Women have made major contributions to climate change research and policy and to broader analysis of global environmental issues. They include many women scientists as well as policy makers and activists.