Climate action projects for transport made easy

Five toolkits for climate-friendly transport projects are helping developing and emerging countries make the transition to sustainable transport.

The goals of the Paris Agreement cannot be achieved without sustainable transport and the large-scale decarbonisation of this sector. Transport is the sector with the highest energy consumption in two-fifths of countries worldwide and the second-highest in most of the other nations. All in all, global transport emissions amount to around 7.5 Gt CO₂ (2016) – roughly a quarter of all energy-related CO₂ emissions (SLoCaT 2018: Transport and Climate Change Global Status Report). Accordingly, the German Federal Ministry for the Environment (BMU) is working with International Climate Initiative (IKI) to support partner projects that help developing and emerging countries to engage with sustainable transport.

To provide a helping hand to actors in partner countries in their efforts to plan effective measures for climate-friendly transport while giving them the practical information and tools they need, the Changing Transport web portal now offers five toolkits on key topics in urban transport, including bus fleet modernisation, national urban transport programmes, sustainable urban transport planning, freight traffic (ecodriving) and impact measurement.

Each toolkit offers an attractively presented set of guidance documents, process aids, case studies and materials for capacity building, which have been sourced from the international activities of the German Society for International Cooperation (GIZ) and other organisations. The toolkits bring together the practical know-how gained in the IKI projects 'TRANSfer III - Facilitating the development of ambitious transport mitigation actions' and 'Supporting climate strategies in countries where motorisation is rapidly increasing (TraCS)', as well as the multi-sponsor initiatives MobiliseYourCity and EUROCLIMA+.

Five toolkits have been published to date, based on key criteria such as demand from partner countries, mitigation potential and feasibility:

• Truck Ecodriving Toolkit: A programmatic approach to this cost-effective measure that reduces CO₂ and other emissions by improving driving styles – but which does require a broad-based approach to setting up training programmes.
• Sustainable Urban Mobility Plan (SUMP) Toolkit: Guides cities through the development process for SUMPs, an integrated approach to planning sustainable urban transport that meets people’s needs while helping to mitigate climate change.
• National Urban Mobility Policies and Investment Programmes (NUMP) Toolkit: Cities need policy frameworks and support at national level. NUMPs, in short – for which this toolkit provides step-by-step guidance in developing appropriate programmes.
• Bus Fleet Renewal Toolkit: Offers guidance to ensure the success of processes for migrating to sustainable urban bus services, including aspects such as financing, impact measurement or cooperation management.   
• Transparency Toolkit: Reliable data on transport-related emissions and transport development, as well as methods expertise and calculation tools, are indispensable for the design and monitoring of transport sector policies, goals and measures.

From entry-level to expert, the toolkits are basically designed for use by anyone involved in the planning or execution of projects in these areas. A two-minute video tutorial can be found on the Toolkit landing page.