World Development Banks pledge $ 175 billion for Sustainable Mobility

| 18.07.2012

In line with the recent decision of the European Union to spend 20% of their budget on decarbonisation of the European economies, the eight largest multilateral development banks (MDBs) announced that they will invest US$175 billion in sustainable transportation systems over the coming decade. This voluntary commitment is an outcome of the Rio+20 campaign of the Partnership on Sustainable Low Carbon Transport, which was held in June 2012.

Reason for this decision is the fact that the transportation sector is the fastest growing source of greenhouse gasses as a result of decades of urban planning that focused on improving mobility for automobiles at the expense of public transport and non-motorised transport. Global CO2 emissions from the transport sector are projected to increase nearly 50% by 2030 if nothing is done. Congestion, air pollution, road accidents and transport related climate change can cost 5-10% of GDP per year and cause the premature death of millions of people. An illustrative video of the Asian Development Bank – one of the MDBs – on this matter can be found here.

Decarbonisation of urban mobility is necessary to boost sustainable economic development, protect the environment and improve public health, especially in Africa and Asia. Cities in these continents are still growing rapidly; it is expected that China and India alone will add 500 million people to their urban population in the next 20 years.

With the promised investment of the eight MDBs and the voluntary commitments of another thirteen organizations on sustainable mobility, a major step forward has been made in putting in place collaborative long term finance regarding sustainable urban mobility!