CoAct Database

Low Carbon Transport for Urban Sustainability (LOTUS) Initiative

Sustainable low carbon mobility is a high priority for all governments, especially in the Global South. National and sub-national governments are looking to develop transport systems that improve equity, ensure access, enhance prosperity, contribute to health and well-being and ameliorate the adverse environmental impacts of transport emissions. Over half of the worlds population live in cities, which account for 70% of global emissions. Within cities, transport makes up a third of all emissions. As urbanization accelerates in the Global South, improving urban transport and mobility is becoming an increasingly salient lever to deliver on the above outcomes.

Transforming urban mobility systems across geographies is a momentous task. Efforts to decarbonize specific transport modes are already underway, and some cities are demonstrating what is possible, but widespread systemic transformation is now needed. Under the leadership of the Egyptian COP27 Presidency and following a multi-stakeholder consultation process with the global transport community – including NGOs, think tanks, UN system entities, multilateral development banks, and member states – 5 systemic challenges in the urban mobility landscape were identified: 1) Financing gap: investment in Global South projects is often seen as unattractive due to small ticket sizes and (perceived) unproven/weak return on investment. Funders cite a lack of robust data which hinders their ability to make sound financial decisions. Public-private collaboration to aggregate demand and pool funding for infrastructure projects is limited; 2) Weak policymaking and implementation capability: political leadership to deliver policies that accelerate sustainable urban mobility projects is sometimes lacking. Even when there is political will, there is often a lack of technical capabilities to plan and execute sustainable transport interventions; 3) Lack of policy coherence and clear, credible targets: Transport plans are not always aligned to broader climate policy architecture e.g., UNFCCC Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs), Long Terms Strategies (LTSs), Global Stocktake (GST). Few Global South countries have articulated long-term vision and set concrete and ambitious targets making it difficult for the broader transport ecosystem to coalesce around a common goal; 4) Difficulty integrating and regulating informal transport: Informal transport operators play a significant role in serving the demand for shared mobility in the Global South but tend to be poorly integrated into mobility systems, and governments and regulators find it difficult to support and implement decarbonisation plans; 5) Siloed thinking around modes: Legacy efforts have emphasized a modal and operatorcentric approach to decarbonize transport systems. The lack of an integrated, systems view means that some modes have been prioritized over others, while transversal enablers of change (e.g., scaled up public & private sector financing, procurement at scale, consistent and high-quality data, multi-stakeholder collaboration, etc) have been overlooked.

GST linkages