Presidential Roundtable summary - Decarbonising transport: how do we design effective policies?

There's no plausible path to net-zero without significantly reducing transport emissions – reductions that need to be delivered soon.

Governments globally face difficult policy choices around constraining demand for unsustainable passenger and freight transport services without disadvantaging certain geographies, industries or populations.

At an ICE-hosted Presidential Roundtable, attendees from around the world discussed how cities and regions are tackling the challenge of decarbonising their transport systems ahead of COP27.

This event followed a roundtable ICE hosted last year on what should be included in a strategy to decarbonise transport, which took place ahead of the release of the UK government’s Transport Decarbonisation Plan.

This latest roundtable built on many of the points raised last year, with participants particularly emphasising the opportunities for subnational and place-based action to be drivers of change.

There was also discussion of the importance of behaviour change in reaching net zero, funding and governance challenges facing the transport sector, and a reminder of the need for greater consideration of the freight sector.