Wednesday, 23rd September 2009
Careful consideration is needed as to how we travel about Edinburgh
This week hundreds of towns and cities across Europe are participating in European Mobility Week, aimed at promoting sustainable travel.
From 16 to 22 September events and activities aimed at encouraging citizens to think differently about how they travel and the impact of that mode of transport on the environment, are being organised.
In Edinburgh events have included the Commuter Challenge and this Sunday’s Car Free Day 2009.
The theme of this year’s campaign – ‘Improving City Climates’ – aims to tackle climate change through the promotion of alternative means of transport including cycling, walking, public transport and make citizens think wider to initiatives like car sharing.
Last year’s European Mobility Week engaged 220 million citizens in 39 countries. This year, its hoped even more will take part.
In Scotland, an alarming one third of people don’t believe their actions contribute to global climate change (Scottish Environmental Attitudes and Behaviours Survey).
Climate change is top of the political agenda across the world. The role of Scotland, combined with the leading role the EU is playing in the climate change debate, will be instrumental in achieving the European Parliament’s Climate Change and Energy Package targets by 2020 – a 20 percent reduction in greenhouse gas emissions, a 20 percent improvement in energy efficiency and a 20 percent share for renewables in the EU energy mix.
As a Scottish MEP and as President of the European Parliament’s Intergroup for Climate Change, Sustainability and Biodiversity, I believe that every small step to help achieve our tough target of reducing greenhouse gas emissions by 42 percent by 2020 on 1990 levels must be encouraged.
Bike rental schemes such as the one in Brussels, which follows the highly successful initiatives in Paris and Copenhagen, are designed to encourage people to give up their cars and cycle to and from work. Bikes are available for hire for indefinite periods simply by swiping a credit card.
Maybe Scotland's big cities could learn from this?
All of this will be discussed and reviewed when MEPs from across Europe participate in the Copenhagen Climate Change Conference in mid-December to agree a new climate change treaty as a successor to the Kyoto Protocol. Kyoto is an international agreement for reducing greenhouse gas emissions, which expires in 2012.
Last year’s European Mobility Week initiative saw over 7,500 permanent measures implemented across Europe. Examples include the creation of pedestrian areas; an improvement to public transport and workplace travel plans. This year, they hope to break that barrier and we all have a part to play.
With over 70% of the European population now living in an urban area, European Mobility Week offers an ideal opportunity for us all to take direct action and think carefully about how they travel in and around our cities.
