The main topic on the COP26 Transport Day schedule was basically about electric vehicles. Cycling, walking, trains and buses were excluded from the high-level discussions. On active travel was added to the so-called Glasgow Declaration on accelerating the transition to one hundred percent zero-emission cars and vans.
Thanks to Baldwin’s intervention and wide dissemination on the floor through leaders of cycling, walking and transit organizations at the Save the World Summit, the latter included the following sentence at the base of the document:
“We recognise that alongside the shift to zero emission vehicles, a sustainable future for road transport will require wider system transformation, including support for active travel, public and shared transport.”
It’s possible this sentence was inserted when it was confirmed that Baldwin—the EU’s top official on sustainable urban mobility—would speak in the plenary session.
Thirty countries—and some of the world’s leading automotive companies, including Ford, General Motors and Volvo Cars—signed the Declaration at COP26. The main aim is to phase out gasoline and diesel-powered motor vehicles by 2040 and replace them with electric cars and trucks. Sign-ups to the promise include Canada, New Zealand, and the Netherlands.
The U.K.—which had already pledged to phase out new gasoline and diesel vehicles by the more ambitious target of 2030—also signed the agreement.
Notably, the U.S., China and Germany did not sign the Declaration.
Baldwin is the EU Coordinator for Road Safety and Sustainable Urban Mobility. The Englishman residing in Brussels is the Deputy Director General of the European Commission.
The plenary session which Baldwin addressed also had speakers from Ford, Scania and Volvo Cars, but there were no representatives from train or bicycle companies.
Baldwin said EU member states were legally obliged to cut transport emissions by 90% by 2050 and, to that end, in 2020 the EU adopted a sustainable and smart mobility strategy.
He welcomed the high-level agenda discussion on zero emission vehicles, calling the transition to electric cars and truck “indispensable.”
However, he argued, this “will obviously not be enough” and that “the shift to a zero-emission fleet will be part of a broader technique towards sustainable and prudent multimodal mobility. “
Baldwin said at the plenary consultation that the world wants “more use of public transportation [and] we want more walking and biking as a component of the transition to climate-neutral cities through 2030. “
“So,” he emphasized, “as a component of today’s great statement, let’s lose sight of the big picture. “
Transport experts have in the past criticised the joint resolution by the UN and UK governments to focus almost entirely on the electrification of cars at the 26th Conference of the Parties in Glasgow.
“It’s crazy cycling isn’t on the main agenda here at COP26,” mused Chris Boardman, Greater Manchester’s transport commissioner.
“People switching from general cars to electric cars is not progress,” continued Boardman, who was in Glasgow with goodwill leaders such as U. S. Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg. (The satisfied hand in the COP26 blue zone for global leaders and negotiators turns into clumsy blows, or for more cautious elbows. )
“In the short term, it makes things worse because you’re going to make electric cars and we’re not in a position to produce as much electric power for all those new cars,” the gold medal-winning former Olympic cyclist said. , which is now in rate for all shipping modes in Greater Manchester.
Heather Thompson, executive director of the New York-based Institute for Transportation and Development Policy, once said outdoors in the Blue Zone that “we want to get fossil fuels out of the transportation sector. “
She added, “we will not meet our 1.5°C targets if we focus on electrifying private vehicles alone.” (ITDP has a research paper due soon on this finding.)
Instead, at the Power of the Bike event co-organised through Union Cycliste Internationale and Visit Scotland, he told me that “we want to travel by public transport, walk and bike”.
“Bicycles have been at the heart of COP26,” agreed Boardman, who is also a policy adviser to British Cycling.
“Cycling has been the first component of today’s shipping agenda. When a third of your emissions come from shipping, you must replace your mode.
Boardman was intrigued by the lack of high-level debates on cycling here in Glasgow, as, to date, Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s leadership has been strong on “active travel” such as walking and cycling.
Johnson’s “Shift” plan, unveiled in July 2020, came with the promise that England would have thousands of miles of protected motorcycle lanes on sidewalks built to the highest standards recently published. Guru Andrew Gilligan – was led by Johnson, an everyday cyclist before becoming prime minister.
Johnson said at the time that the plan “aims to unleash maximum radical replacement in our cities since the advent of the mass car. “
Speaking to me in Glasgow, Boardman said Johnson’s previous plan for the asset was “incredibly ambitious” and that he was also “reunited”.
Now, Boardman said, the British had to “keep company and deliver. “
And, Boardman continued, “if they do, we’re in a moment of radicalisation [in the UK]. “
This only made things even more confusing as the British government, which led the organisation of COP26, excluded cycling (as well as walking, buses and trains). Johnson said before the convention that he needed “coal, cars, trees and money. “
More than a hundred cycling activists waved banners and demonstrated silently in front of the blue zone entrances, hoping to remind delegates arriving for Transport Day that the assets were not going to be discussed at a high point of the convention center.
Demonstration organiser Iona Shepherd of GoBike said: “Electric cars are taking centre stage [at COP26 Transport Day], while sustainable cycling, which is by far the cheapest way to reduce emissions from shipping, is not even mentioned.
U. S. Congressman Earl Blumenauer of Oregon was also not impressed.
“It’s a huge omission for cycling not to be on the main agenda today,” he said.
Blumenauer is an enthusiast and veteran supporter of motorcycles (he gifted me one of his badges with the icon of motorcycles in the inner sand of the Blue Zone, a remarkable photogenic area for a giant balloon illuminated from the roof).
He continued, “Cycling burns calories instead of fossil fuels, and we had to focus more on that today. Electric cars are the shining novelty, but we won’t have to forget about cycling. “
Nor must we ignore walking, said Bronwen Thornton, chief executive of pedestrian organization Walk 21.
“I’m here representing the entire planet because everybody walks,” quipped Thornton from the Action Zone.
“Walking isn’t on the main agenda, and it’s not a priority for the U.K. government here at COP26. Electrification [of motor vehicles] is the top priority here for the U.K. government and the UN. But we’re not going to reduce carbon emissions just with tech, and nor can we wait; we have to have solutions [to the climate crisis] now.”
Thornton added: “Walking, cycling, public transport: they are all part of the same solution.”
“We should all be talking about public transport today,” said the elected Mayor of Greater Manchester, Andy Burnham, walking briskly to one of his many meetings in the badge-only Blue Zone.
“We should be talking about reducing the cost of bus fares and rail fares and increasing the cost of airfares.”
This last point referenced the recent U.K. budget when, after removing taxes, flying within the U.K. was made cheaper.
“The government needs to see that working towards net zero could also be part of the leveling up program,” said Burnham.
“Make public transport cheaper, and—with national government funding—make it carbon neutral at the same time.”
Burnham recently toured several of Greater Manchester’s newly-built, people-friendly “Cyclops” road junctions with Boardman, who was originally appointed as Greater Manchester’s walking and cycling commissioner but now has the region’s full transport brief.
“Appointing Chris Boardman as transport commissioner sent the message that walking or cycling is the natural choice for the first mile and the last mile,” said Burnham, adding “jump on a bus or a tram for the middle bit.”
British politician Ed Miliband was also critical of the high-level agenda’s focus on electric motor vehicles.
“The climate transition is not simply about replacing every petrol or diesel car with an electric car,” Miliband told me in the COP26 Media Center.
“The transition has also got to be about walking and cycling, and decent public transport,” added the Labour MP for Doncaster North and who is the Shadow Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy.
“We want to create a bigger society where other people can walk and bike, with all the fitness benefits that this brings,” Miliband added.
In Go Big, Miliband’s e-book on world-changing political ideas, the former Labour Party leader before resigning after defeat in the 2015 general election, praised Burnham and Boardman’s active paintings of Manchester.
Miliband also said he had recently moved to cycling.
“At 50, I had a revelation: electric motorcycles were fun,” he wrote in the book, earlier this year.
This epiphany came here on holiday in France.
“Then back in London, I ventured into local travel and even controlled myself to work,” Miliband revealed.
“Now I have the zeal of a convert. “
Road transport accounts for 17% of global emissions, and those emissions are increasing. The recent report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change on Global Warming suggested world leaders reduce car consumption and highlighted cycling as a vital way to ensure a safe and sustainable global environment. .
But, if cycling is a proven and rapid way to reduce emissions from shipping, why do he and his allies, public and walking transport, take seriously in the Blue Zone of COP26, the closed zone for the world’s leaders and delegates, observers and accredited journalists?
“I am disappointed that there is no public transport on the AGENDA at COP26,” said Mohamed Mezghani, Secretary-General of the World Public Transport Organization UITP, addressing me from under the giant blue zone balloon.
“The maritime transport ministerial assembly here committed to electric cars: there is no precedent for less polluting, more socially inclusive and healthier modes. Much more needs to be done to make decision-makers perceive that public transport can contribute to the fight against climate change. “.
He added: “Only 30% of the national weather replacement plans developed for COP26 included public transport measures. “
“Our message is clear,” Mezghani continued, “100% of those plans will have to come with public transportation. Transport, overall, accounted for 24% of CO2 emissions in 2020. If we don’t act, by 2030 it will be 40% [of emissions]. Transport is the sector that is seeing its [emissions] grow the fastest. “
UITP is one of more than three hundred organisations that have signed the European Cyclists’ Federation’s open letter to global governments on the desire to prioritise cycling at COPs in the long term.
“We see cycling, walking and public transport as a green marine environment that, in combination, will generate CO2 emissions similar to urban mobility,” Mezghani stressed.
“This COP saw the first assembly of maritime transport ministers at a Conference of the Parties (COP). We only had 12 or thirteen ministers, not many, but this is the first step, and I think the tension we have exerted here will be publicly seen in maritime transport, walking and cycling, a precedent in the next COPs. “
(COP27 is scheduled to take a position in Egypt; COP28 will be held through a still-selected Asian city. )
The electric car thing at COP26 is due to the fact that it is “easy” for politicians, said Jill Warren, executive director of the European Cyclists’ Federation.
“Promoting electric cars is a convenient solution for world leaders. It sounds like the prestige quo, but the electrification of cars adjusts the prestige quo a bit. Automakers are part of an incredibly tough lobby, but we’re here to say, no, you want to pay more attention to modes of transportation that can make a much bigger difference [in the opposite fight against climate change]. “
The joint letter initiated through the European Cyclists’ Federation as a reaction to the omission of cycling from the main agenda.
“We think it couldn’t be,” said Warren of the Blue Zone, recalling the first time she saw the convention’s program for Transportation Day and its near-total dominance of electric vehicles.
“We had to call it,” he added, “and communicate the desire for leaders here to recognize cycling, fund it and have policies that allow for more cycling because it’s a [climate] solution. “
“Most car trips in Europe are less than five kilometers,” Warren stressed, saying those journeys could easily be switched to bikes.
“The potential is there, the technology is there, we just need the political will, the courage, and the funding,” said Warren.
“We practice evidence-based advocacy,” she asserted.
“If you make cities more cycling-friendly, you don’t just get the emission reductions; you get the livability, you get the absolutely enormous health benefits. These add up to over $60 billion in economic benefits a year in Europe.”
European Cyclists’ Federation president Henk Swarttouw said he was “disappointed” cycling wasn’t on the main agenda at COP26 “because to us, it seemed so obvious: bicycling is low cost, low tech, but high impact.”
“If Amsterdam staged the event, cycling would be at the top of the agenda,” he reckoned.
“If it had been organised in Ireland,” he continued, “cycling would be the most sensible on the precedence list, as the Irish government now spends 10% of its budget on cycling and 10% on walking. “
Swarttouw doesn’t think the phasing out of internal combustion engines and switching to cars with blank exhaust outlets will lead to the kind of immediate emissions discounts that many politicians seem to assume is a no-brainer.
“Most of the cars sold in the world still run on gasoline or diesel,” he said.
“These cars will be on the road for 20 or 40 years,” Swarttouw continued, “so we’re not going to reduce emissions from the shipping sector fast enough. We want more cycling.
And, of course, more walking and public transport, said the experts on walking and public transport here in Glasgow, but who, unlike the interests of the car, had no voice at the cop26 main table.
Article updated November 11 with quotes from GoBike, Ed Miliband and Matthew Baldwin. The name has been replaced to better reflect the latest news related to the insertion of a phrase on active mobility and transit in the Glasgow Declaration on Transport.