– – – – – – – – > Working draft update of 12 December. To be finalized over month.
WORLD STREETS is betting its future on the coming immediate-term transition period led by certain ambitious, responsible cities, nations, organizations and citizens in different parts of the world to come together to break the downward pattern of ever-increasing climate stress — and before the challenge to plan and execute highly aggressive near-term initiatives aimed at sharply cutting greenhouse gas emissions from the mobility sector. And doing all this while working with proven tools, policies and strategies that harness cost-effective, readily available, measures, technologies, operational and management competence. And our job is to support them as best we can.
THE FIVE PERCENT CHALLENGE: One of the originalities of this approach is its fierce concentration on near-term initiatives and results, i.e., what can be targeted and accomplished in the year directly ahead to reduce GHG emissions by a targeted five percent. The long-time horizons — the 2030’s, 2040’s, etc. — time horizons that are being promised for achieving major cuts in the environmental load are, in our view, useful as broad statements of intentions, but not all that helpful to when it comes to changing the pattern, the model, now!. The very human fact is that the far future gets heavily discounted and fails to penetrate in many minds. Our cities and our planet badly need near-term results and a continuing sharp reversal of the installed the downward trends.
And for that we need to create a new model. There is no reason to wait any longer, and every reason to attack the climate challenge immediately. And we are here to support this mobility revolution. The idea is to be judged by the announced public targets and achieved results in the year immediately following the Challenge program startup, 2020.
The power of a new mobility concept depends not on how well it solves a given, targeted problem. But on how many problems it (partly) solves. – Marko Te Brömmelstroet
MORE WITH LESS: Here are a couple of acronyms that are central to these strategies — TDM, ICT, VKT, TSM, ITS, MaaS, HOV, LOV, LOS, PBS, . . . among a long list of others – that you are already familiar with and will see developed in the articles, pages and references that follow here. Ways in which to do more with less. And . . . / Better / Quicker / Cheaper. To get a better feeling for this, check out in particular our TDM Primer here at https://worldstreets.wordpress.com/tag/tdm-primer/.
COLLABORATIVE PROBLEM SOLVING: By posting the key steps of their CHALLENGE project in the STREETS LAB project section, from the first organizational and planning stages and then on through the fine-tuning, results and proposed adjustments for the 2020 projects we open up a group learning process. Also encouraging both private and open comments and suggestions on posted projects.
ECOSYSTEMS: This is the most subtle and demanding aspect of this challenge project. For a well-prepared program, many sharp reductions can be achieved in a matter of months or a couple of years, as opposed to decades (or never). The great art lies in how we select, prepare and then knit them all together . . . so as to effectively redefine the entire underlying mobility ecosystem. As our Dutch colleague Marco Te Brömmelstroet put it so well: “The power of a new mobility concept depends not on how well it solves a problem . . . but on how many problems it (partly) solves “. We take that as a timely reminder.
BETTER CHOICES: HOW TO. In two ways: first not by admonishing, but by inviting. Offering better choices and not punitive measures forced down the throat of the public. As the poet/politician William Butler Yeats put it so long ago: “the role of education is not to fill a bucket, but to light a fire.” Because we know that the way to make this more than difficult transition is to be lively, surprising and to find the soft way . . . together.
INVITATION: Readers of World Streets, colleagues, researchers, students and public interest groups around the world are cordially invited to join early discussions and shaping of a proposed open collaborative climate emergency initiative, aiming to identify and demonstrate by concrete examples ways in which greenhouse gas emissions emanating from the mobility sector can be reduced by a whopping 5% in Year 1. And then again in Years 2, 3, 4… etc. (Learning by doing.)
WORLD STREETS CLIMATE EMERGENCY TOOLBOX AND CONTEXT (draft, Links to be verified)
(1) Start here – https://wp.me/psKUY-5Js
(2) Global Climate context – http://bit.ly/2SgKIWW
(3) Climate Change programs underway http://bit.ly/2EwBwK7
(4) World Climate Change News & media- http://bit.ly/2XegNCm
(5) International Advisory Panel – https://wp.me/psKUY-4yh
(6) Strategies – https://worldstreets.wordpress.com/tag/strategies/
(7) Planners’ Bookshelf – (See https://yhoo.it/2YbZwdp for example to follow)
(8) The Third Force – https://worldstreets.wordpress.com/tag/thethirdforce/
(9) Visual evidence – http://bit.ly/2T6Ee1k
(10) Twitter – https://twitter.com/worldstreets
(11) Full Gender Parity – http://bit.ly/2ViIR5G
(12) TDM Primer at https://worldstreets.wordpress.com/tag/tdm-primer
(13) Invitation – https://wp.me/psKUY-5vw
(14) The Reykjavik Challenge – ICELAND STEPS UP
(15) Penang Challenge – https://www.facebook.com/PenangClimateMobility/
(16) Maribor Challenge – https://www.facebook.com/MariborStepsUp/
(17) CONTACTS: Email. climate@newmobility.org . Tel. +336 5088 0787. WAP +1 310 919 4292. Skype: newmobility. Project coordinator: Eric Britton at http://bit.ly/2Ti8LsX
STEAL THIS PROJECT It is our firm hope that this open collaborative project will not only bring some much-needed fresh ideas to the on-going climate agenda, but that others will come in with their own hopefully even better ideas, skills, projects and resources, and do better yet in the search for those vital near term improvements and changes so much needed. World Streets will follow, support and report on this wave of new thinking and action as best we can. Teamwork!
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World Streets Britton Climate/Mobility online – http://bit.ly/31OSpcn
Eric Britton
13, rue Pasteur. Courbevoie 92400 France
Bio: Founding editor of World Streets (1988), Eric Britton is an American political scientist, teacher, occasional consultant, and sustainability activist who has observed, learned, taught and worked on missions and advisory assignments on all continents. In the autumn of 2019, he committed his remaining life work to the challenges of aggressively countering climate change and specifically greenhouse gas emissions emanating from the mobility sector. He is not worried about running out of work. Further background and updates: @ericbritton | http://bit.ly/2Ti8LsX | #fekbritton | https://twitter.com/ericbritton | and | https://www.linkedin.com/in/ericbritton/ Contact: climate@newmobility.org) | +336 508 80787 (Also WhatApp) | Skype: newmobility.)
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WORLD STREETS __ A New Mobility Action Plan for 2022 