United Nations Climate Change Conference, Copenhagen 2009

Date: 4/12/2009

TRL is one of an international group of experts from transport institutes and research organisations, which includes GTZ, UITP and Veolia Transport. Together they are working on Bridging the Gap: Pathways for Transport in the post 2012 Process, an initiative aimed at achieving an effective link between transport and climate change, developing targeted strategies to integrate sustainable land transport into the climate negotiations.

Bridging the Gap is currently using its expertise and knowledge generated to identify key barriers for the integration of transport in the climate debate and has formulated specific and targeted recommendations for inclusion in any international agreement.

Key barriers to be overcome include:

• Leveraging the necessary public and private investment streams for climate-proofed transport infrastructure and systems to be built
• Methodology difficulties: notably agreement on the baseline against which CO2 emission reductions should be calculated; ways of proving additionality (ie how    emission reductions would not have occurred under a "do nothing" scenario) and of supporting sustained emission reductions
• Collection of reliable data on transport intensity, GHG emissions and trends

The group have put forward recommendations for an international agreement, which include:

• Explicitly mention the land transport sector and call for accountability for transport emissions as part of mitigation actions
• Ensure that registry for Nationally Appropriate Mitigation Actions (NAMAs) include a sectoral breakdown
• Recognise the important role of transport infrastructure and design of cities in adaptation and mitigation efforts
• Assess transportation efficiency more robustly and include network and system improvements with affordable technologies
• Provide capacity building regarding all modes of sustainable transport
• Include a transport window (eg for the development of public transport infrastructure) in any future climate fund and/or make sectoral crediting through no-lose targets possible for the transport sector

TRL's Holger Dalkmann will be in Copenhagen throughout the United Nations Conference and will be speaking at a number of events, including "Transport out of the Greenhouse" and an international expert workshop "Mainstreaming Integrated Solutions in Transition Towards a Carbon Free Global Transport System".

Issued by TRL's Communication Team

For further information contact Mary Treen or Sarah Bailey

Tel:  + 44 (0) 1344 770514/0141

Email:  mediaenquiries@trl.co.uk