Skip to main content

New ITF Projections for urban mobility in China, India, Latin America

Transport in the urban centres of emerging economies is becoming a major battleground for combating climate change. Projections presented by ITF Economist Aimée Aguilar Jaber during the COP 20 climate change negotiations in Lima, Peru indicate that big cities in China, India and Latin America with over 500,000 inhabitants will more than double their share of world passenger transport emissions by 2050 to 20 per cent, from nine per cent in 2010, if current urban transport policies remain unchanged. 38 pe
December 19, 2014 Read time: 2 mins
Transport in the urban centres of emerging economies is becoming a major battleground for combating climate change.

Projections presented by ITF Economist Aimée Aguilar Jaber during the COP 20 climate change negotiations in Lima, Peru indicate that big cities in China, India and Latin America with over 500,000 inhabitants will more than double their share of world passenger transport emissions by 2050 to 20 per cent, from nine per cent in 2010, if current urban transport policies remain unchanged. 38 per cent of the total growth in world surface transport passenger emissions to 2050 will come from big cities in these three regions in such a business-as-usual scenario.

These new projections, released by ITF for the event, highlight a critical choice for policy-makers: whether to pursue urbanisation based on public transport or on private transport with cars and two wheelers. Sustained policies that promote either private or public urban transport lead to very different mobility futures, as projections for modal shares in 2050 show (see charts, left).

These alternative scenarios have profound impacts for the contribution of urban transport to global emissions that are detailed in the 2015 ITF Transport Outlook, of which chapter 4 containing the projections for China, India and Latin America was pre-released for the COP20 conference.

The projections were presented by ITF Economist Aimée Aguilar Jaber during the Side Event "Mitigation Potential of Urban Sustainable Low-Carbon Transport: Priorities for INDCs, NAMAs and SDGs" on 4 December, jointly organised by the 5466 Institute for Transportation and Development Policy (ITDP) and ITF.

For more information on companies in this article

Related Content

  • Reducing transport energy use with real time travel information
    January 23, 2012
    The In-Time project is looking at the effect that multi-modal real-time traveller information services can have of reducing transport's energy consumption levels. By Martin Böhm, AustriaTech GmbH. Around the world, significant research and development effort is currently directed towards reducing energy consumption by addressing those areas where the biggest savings can be expected. European studies have shown that the transport sector has the potential to reduce its energy consumption by up to 26 per cent
  • No city is a traffic island
    April 2, 2024
    Beate Kubitz reflects on the rising tide of suburban drivers - and how cities across Europe are dealing with them as worries over air quality multiply
  • Looking forward to CARTES 2014 in Europe, Asia and America
    November 20, 2013
    2014 will see CARTES events in Asia and America – and don’t forget to put a note in your diary for CARTES Secure Connexions Event 2014 to be held from 4 to 6 November in Paris Welcome to Day 3 of the CARTES Secure Connexions Event 2013. This is the last day of the show and we hope you have enjoyed everything so far - and will continue to get a great deal out of the sessions and conferences. We are proud to announce that we have excellent indicators in terms of registered visitor numbers at the show. Gen
  • ASECAP examines tolling’s trials, tribulations and triumphs
    September 4, 2018
    If you want to get up to speed on the main issues facing the transport sector and tolling companies, ASECAP Study Days event in Ljubljana was a good place to start. Colin Sowman reports (Photographs: Louis David). Increasing populations, ever-higher technical and safety requirements, and electric and hybrid vehicles will provide both challenges and opportunities for tolling companies. The annual Study Days event organised by ASECAP (the European association for tolling companies) examined all of these aspec