Institutional Frameworks to Address Transport and Climate Change

Clean Air Initiative for Asian Cities Center

Institutional Frameworks to address Transport and Climate change

Cornie Huizenga Consultant

CAI-Asia Center

Achieving Global and Local Objectives through Sustainable Transport and Land Use: an agenda for 2009 and beyond

16 January, Washington DC

www.cleanairnet.org/caiasiaCAI-Asia Center2

• Are Institutions in Asia planning and managing transport?


The outputs of Asian Transport institutions: Dhaka Bangladesh


The outputs of Asian Transport institutions: Shanghai, China


The outputs of Asian Transport institutions: Beijing, China


The outputs of Asian Transport institutions: Hanoi, Viet Nam


The outputs of Asian Transport institutions: Manila, Philippines


The outputs of Asian Transport institutions: BRT Xiamen, China


Why the need for institutional development?

• There is new policy consensus emerging on sustainable urban transport and low carbon transport. Critical importance of institutions in advancing action on Transport and Climate Change in developing countries.

• The institutional capacity at local, national, regional and global level to design, implement and evaluate low carbon transport policies and programs is grossly inadequate to achieve a change in the business as usual scenarios in terms of GHG emissions from the transport sector in developing Asia


What institutional development is ongoing?

• Difference between Institutional development and training?

• What model is being followed?• How much resources are being allocated?• Who is doing the institutional development:

– City level groups?– National level organizations?– Regional level organizations?


Impact - Scale should drive all discussions

Scaling out: within cities

Sca

ling

up: n

umbe

r of c

ities

25

250

2500

Awareness

Transport

Single issue

Analysis

Sustainable transport

Co-benefits

Action

Urban planning

Sustainability

Scaling out: within cities

Sca

ling

up: n

umbe

r of c

ities

25

250

2500

Awareness

Transport

Single issue

Analysis

Sustainable transport

Co-benefits

Action

Urban planning

Sustainability


Direction of institutional development

• Institutional development in support of low carbon urban transport in Asia will require: – (a) clarification of institutional mandates at all

geographical levels (local, sub-national, national, regional and global,

– (ii) strengthening of institutional capacities within all sectors (government, civil society, academe and private sector,

– (c) improved coordination and cooperation between different sectors at, and between, different geographical levels;


Precedents• In almost all the policy areas relevant for strengthening the

sustainability of urban transport systems and thereby also making them less carbon intensive there are examples of institutions at regional, national or local level which have been able to demonstrate that it is feasible in the context of developing Asia to be effective as an organization with respect to urban transport– Fuel Economy standards: China– Congestion charging: Singapore– Promotion Cycling: Marikina City– BRT: Jakarta– Profitable bus company: Bangalore– Pedestrianization: Ayala Land/Makati City

• What is required to replicate and scale up these individual cases? Answers are outside the transport sector in many cases.


India: Policy – Financing – Institutional linkage

• India passed National Urban Transport Policy to (re)direct urban transport planning towards sustainable urban transport

• Jawahl Nehru Urban Renewal Mission creates financial mechanism for implementation on NUTP

• Under JNURM central government to provide 50% of costs of busses for BRT schemes on following reform conditions:– Creation UMTA (Urban Mass Transit Authority)– Urban Transport Fund– Nodal Department– Private Sector Operations– Separate Special Purpose Vehicle for managing city

operations– Exemption from taxes


Stronger existing and new organizations

• Need for coordinating departments, this can be e.g. MoUD in India, or the role of National Development and Reform Commission in China to coordinate urban development and/or climate policy. However, transport departments should maintain primacy in transport policy.

• At city level there will be in many cases a need for new institutions:– Transport authority– Special purpose vehicle to implement BRT or other

mass transit scheme– Cooperative to integrate informal transport operators

into entity which will (co)-implement new transit scheme


Need for structural change – the danger of a strong leader

ExternalAssistance

(ideas-training-pilot

projects)

Local champion, leading the way with

one-off ideas, projects,

Long March Through the Institutions:• Change culture• Change mission, mandates, policies• Change planning and budgeting• Change organizational linkages

Create parallel structures:• Special delivery vehicles with

high level of effectiveness• Duplication of organizational

mandates and possibly organizational confusion

Impact: quick(er) but not structural?

Impact: slow(er) but more far reaching and comprehensive

New paradigms, e.g climate change or

BRT

Change Origin

If one successful leader can “push through” change, the next strong leader can reverse decisions


Co-benefits and institutions• As indicated in co-benefits think piece gains in terms of GHG

reductions in the transport sector will be in many cases accomplished as co-benefits of other interventions aimed at e.g. reducing congestion or improving air quality

• This means that the institutional responsibility for creating climate gains will directly or indirectly rest with institutions or organizations whose primary mandate or responsibility is not climate change mitigation

• Institutional development in countries following such a co-benefit approach can be different from some Annex 1 countries where organizations or ministries are created whose exclusive mandate is overseeing climate change mitigation

• Should we replicate national level institutions at the local level?


Role of the private sector• Asia is still struggling to define the role that

private sector plays in urban development, land development and provision of public transport. Regulatory frameworks are often missing, weak or biased towards the developers.

• BRT sector is a good illustration of the limited capacity that the national private sector has in Asian countries to capitalize on new trends in transport planning. So far, the bulk of BRT schemes in Asia have been planned by international NGOs, local Universities and international private sector in descending order of importance.


Civil Society• Civil Society in the developed countries: advocacy,

lobbying, policy monitoring. In the developing countries (international) NGOs take on the role of implementing organization and stepping in the shoes of government

• National Asian NGOs on transport are few and have not broken out of their local or national base.

• Continued dependence on international NGOs: ITDP, Energy Foundation, CW,, ICCT

• What is their vision yet on when and how they will be replaced by national or regional organizations.


The importance of regional Asian institutions to take Transport and Climate Change forward

• A stronger regional processes can provide the regional political momentum to put low carbon transport on the national and local policy agenda’s.

• Options to set-up or strengthen regional process:– Expanding the role of G77 in COP with follow-up

activities in between COPs and create Secretariat capacity. This would be more political and focus on climate negotiations

– ESCAP, possibly in cooperation with UNCRD who has made good start with EST process. This would be more technical assistance oriented and less political

– At sub-regional level – example of ASEAN. Combination of policy and technical assistance facilitation. This would also enable South East Asian countries to develop their own profile and be less overshadowed by China and India.


Role of the Donor Community• Nationally Appropriate Mitigation Actions (NAMAs) supported and

enabled by technology, finance and capacity-building, in a measurable, reportable and verifiable manner”- Bali Action Plan

• Donors should couple their support for individual projects increasingly to support for policy dialogues, institutional reform and capacity building, and the development of indigenous financing modalities for low carbon policies, programs and projects.

• Their aim should be to achieve a step change in the speed of development of policies and policy instruments and the coverage of Asian cities with locally owned, funded and implemented low carbon transport projects


The impact of changes in carbon financing

• The shift from project related CDM to more programmatic and sectoral carbon financing modalities as currently are being discussed should lead to a change in capacity building approaches.

• In past years great deal of resources was allocated to build isolated capacity to plan and monitor CDM projects. This was often at the expense of building capacity to plan, manage and monitor the sector or the city.

• The adoption of NAMAs and sectoral no-lose targets will force a re-direction in institutional development and capacity building.


CAI-Asia Centerwww.cleanairnet.org/caiasia

Cornie Huizenga, [email protected]

Unit 3510, 35th Floor, Robinsons-Equitable Tower, ADB Avenue, Pasig City, Metro Manila, 1550 Philippines

For more information, please contact

mailto:[email protected]

Institutional Frameworks to Address Transport and Climate Change

Technology

Transcript of Institutional Frameworks to Address Transport and Climate Change