Geoff Gibbs
Guardian
Friday October 12, 2001
Early and significant action is needed to make world transport systems more efficient, more equitable and less environmentally disruptive, a damning report into the state of worldwide mobility of people and goods said yesterday.
The report, commissioned by the World Business Council for Sustainable Development on behalf of a group of leading international oil and motor industry corporations, warns that existing systems are significant contributors to climate change, resource exhaustion, public health problems and ecosystem collapse.
Such problems, already at worrying levels, are said to be getting worse. According to the report, transport-related emissions that contribute to global warming are increasing in almost all developed countries and will be equalled by those in the developing world by 2015.
Industry leaders say the irony that it should be oil and motor companies that are addressing the issue is not lost on them given the inference that the world needs less oil and fewer cars.
"It may seem surprising that we are publishing such a frank analysis, but we are well placed to be a part of the solution to these issues," Shell's chairman, Philip Watts, a co-chair of the WBCSD's Sustainable Mobility Project, said yesterday.
"We believe that our own commercial future depends on our ability to adapt and meet these challenges.
"If we are to avoid a continuing descent towards unsustainable gridlock and environmental degradation then the way we move ourselves about is going to have to change. I am not sure what the answers will be but workable strategies and answers need to be found."
Copyright © Guardian Newspaper 2001
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