ABOUT UEMI
Urban Electric Mobility Initiative (UEMI) was initiated by UN-Habitat and the SOLUTIONS project and launched at the UN Climate Summit in September 2014 in New York. UEMI aims to contribute significantly to the overall goal of limiting the increase in global mean temperature to two degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels by decreasing urban CO2 emissions globally. As one of the action areas of the UN Climate Summit the UEMI aims to phase out conventionally fuelled vehicles in cities and integrate electric mobility into a wider concept of sustainable urban transport.
The UEMI secretariat develops partnerships with local authorities, industry, SMEs, knowledge and network partners to implement innovative urban electric mobility solutions. The UEMI partnership currently consists of over 100 partners collaborating on implementation-oriented projects. The UEMI secretariat acts as resource centre and provides opportunities for direct collaboration on projects focusing on sustainable urban mobility and the role e-mobility can play in it. The UEMI secretariat pools expertise, facilitate exchange and initiate implementation oriented actions. The resource centre aims to bridge the gap between urban energy and transport and boosting sustainable transport and urban e-mobility.
UEMI: Mobility HUB of the ULLC
The Mobility Hub of the Urban Living Lab Center is hosted by UEMI.
The Urban Living Lab Center is co-hosted by Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Technical University Berlin (TUB) and the Wuppertal Institute, building on the collaboration with UN-Habitat. The objective is to build on a range of joint projects and providing the platform for other actors and projects in the field to broaden and sustain the programme. The network of Labs and Hubs is meant to support the implementation of action-oriented urban development projects in Asia, Africa and Latin America, boost synergies and minimise duplications. The founding group acts as initial driver of the partnership and provides resources to the development and coordination of the partnership. The intention is that during the course of the programme activities are integrated in the on-going academic and capacity building work of all partners.
With commitments from industry and government, UEMI functions as an open forum for knowledge transfer and support for the take-up of e-mobility solutions around the world. It initiates a process of dialogue and continue to gather commitments from local and national governments as well as businesses on e-mobility targets. The Action Platform has been established with a work programme setting out voluntary international, national and city targets on e-mobility such as the global market share of electric vehicles and total number of passenger kilometres travelled on e-vehicles. While these targets will be voluntary in nature, a global monitoring system will be developed to track progress on implementation.
Based on the Memorandum of Understanding with UN-Habitat, the UEMI secretariat works on the development of national action plans for low-carbon urban development and local implementation concepts to deliver on the New Urban Agenda and the Paris Agreement (www.urban-pathways.org). This will support national and local action and international dialogues linked to the UNFCCC and Habitat III processes. To assess the gap between current climate change mitigation actions and efforts required for a 1.5 Degree Stabilisation Pathway national and city-level decarbonisation pathways are being developed by the UEMI in close cooperation with a network of partners from Europe, Asia, Africa and the Americas.
URBAN CHANGE MAKER GROUP
Knowledge Sharing Facility on Urban Basic Services in the Context of Integrated Urban Development
TRANSFORMATION
The transformation of cities towards sustainable and inclusive development is a key objective of the New Urban Agenda. Transport infrastructure is a critical factor in shaping cities, determining the energy intensity of mobility and providing access to essential social and economic opportunities. The sector also plays an important role in global climate change mitigation strategies, as it currently accounts for about 23% of global energy-related greenhouse gas emissions.
SUBSTANTIAL POTENTIAL
From a governance perspective, all relevant political institutions at the local and national level need to be involved in the coalition building along with key societal actors, such as unions, industry and civil society organisations. Bringing the policy objectives of these actors together with an integrated policy package is a vital step towards a low-carbon, sustainable urban systems. Policy design and governance are critically interlinked: The ability of institutions to find a political consensus and to maintain policy stability heavily influences the success of measures to shape the transformation pathway towards sustainable mobility and urban basic services.
URBAN CHANGE MAKER GROUP
The Urban Change Maker Group tackles these issues through a development of a research group to further analyse linkages and highlight the role of different policy and governance approaches in stimulating low-carbon urban development solutions. This analysis builds on transport and urban development research, but takes a transdisciplinary perspective. It builds on the Multi-Level-Perspective on sustainability transitions and aims to highlight the potential for a consensus oriented policy approach that builds on co-benefits among key policy objectives and coalitions among key political actors, which leads to the main question for the research group and the focus areas for the analysis.
MEET THE URBAN CHANGE MAKER GROUP
TECHNICAL UNIVERSITY BERLIN
CEPT UNIVERSITY
WUPPERTAL INSTITUTE
