Make Roads Safe Coordinator Bella Dinh Zarr (second left) with colleagues at the UN preparatory meeting.
Policies for safe and sustainable transport must be included in new Sustainable Development Goals at the 2012 Rio+20 Conference, according to the Executive Coordinator of the 2012 UN Conference.
In an interview with the Make Roads Safe Campaign, Brice Lalonde, Executive Coordinator of Rio+20, made the case for including road safety and sustainable transport within the framework of new sustainable development goals to be agreed at the Rio de Janeiro summit, goals that could eventually be merged with the Millennium Development Goals.
Brice Lalonde, Executive Coordinator of Rio+20, said:
“Transportation is very important and is part of all discussions on climate change, safety, sustainable cities, inter-city transportation. And so suddenly this concern about road safety is becoming something important which is going to be probably addressed in a much better way than it was before, because it was more marginalised before”.
“I think the UN Decade for Road Safety and the Make Roads Safe campaign are both very powerful initiatives and it is going to make a difference. If we could try to address road safety at the same time as we address the environment, the design, the architecture, the land used for the planning of cities, if we can do that in a holistic way it is exactly sustainable development. So I think it is going to make a difference this time, I think it is going to be more central, as much as we can put it in the agenda of Rio+20”.
The Make Roads Safe campaign’s interview with Mr Lalonde took place as governments and NGOs met to discuss an inputs document for the Rio+20 conference. Safe, sustainable transportation was cited throughout the Second Intersessional Meeting of the Rio+20 United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development, which took place at UN Headquarters in New York City to prepare for the Conference in June 2012. Transport was highlighted as a priority in the opening briefing by the UN Global Sustainability Panel and in several key side events, as well as in country floor statements. In the “Sustainable & Just Cities: New Priorities for the Rio+20 Conference” side event, hosted by the Ford Foundation and featuring Mayor Michael Bloomberg, the current Chair of the C40 Cities Climate Leadership Group (C40), Natural Resources Defense Council President Frances Beinecke spoke at length about the need to integrate transportation into sustainability efforts through efforts such as low carbon transport. Mayor Bloomberg cited new bicycle lanes and public transport as examples of how New York City is promoting sustainable transport solutions.
The International Union of Railways (UIC) and SLoCat (the Partnership on Sustainable Low Carbon Transport) held an event entitled “Why Transport Sustainability is Fundamental to Sustainable Development: A Rio+20 Action Agenda” with diverse participation from UN Country Missions, universities, industry, and others. In addition, corporate partners in the “Technologies for Sustainable Development” session, such as IBM, pointed to transportation as a prime example of area where technology can help achieve Rio +20 sustainability goals. Delegates from the NGO community stressed the need for “practical, people-centred” solutions and how safe, sustainable mobility could help achieve this.
Dr. Bella Dinh-Zarr, US Director of the Make Roads Safe Campaign, who attended the UN meeting in New York, said: “As Brice Lalonde’s comments show, there is clearly a groundswell to ensure safe and sustainable transport is part of the Rio+20 framework. Transportation was mentioned over 1000 times by nearly 250 organizations and governments in the Rio +20 preparatory documents, including in submissions from the Commission for Global Road Safety and the FIA Foundation. This, along with the robust discussions at this meeting, demonstrates that participants see safe, sustainable transportation as a priority issue for Rio +20. But this is a cross-cutting issue that does not fall neatly into one category. So often in the past transport has been side-lined and neglected at international sustainability meetings. Now it is up to all of us to ensure that transportation is recognised and included as part of the practical solutions for sustainable development highlighted in Rio next June”.