Why are you working together on this?

The impacts of a tripling global carfleet by 2050 could be distastrous – from an urban air pollution and climate change point of view and in terms of oil import costs. Thus far there are no global programs and initiatives that address these issues comprehensively. For example clean vehicles issues are not included or supported by major global climate initiatives and programs such as the Kyoto Protocol, the Clean Development Mechanism and the Global Environment Facility (GEF). However for any climate regime to work they would need to be addressed – given that huge contribution that the global vehicle fleet is making to the global GHG emissions.  These four organizations therefore decided to take on this initiative since it fits within our broader mandates of promoting sustainability and cost effective CO2 reduction strategies.

We are also very pleased that the GEF has now agreed to provide USD 1 million to the start-up phase of the GFEI. This may indicate a change – in that global programs recognize the importance of the transport sector in addressing global climate change and the potentital the GFEI has to assist in addressing this issue.