Chinese translation of ITF Transport Outlook 2023 launched at ITF Summit
Vice Minister Yang Li of China’s Ministry of Transport today launched the Chinese edition of the ITF Transport Outlook 2023 at the 16th annual International Transport Forum (ITF) Summit in Leipzig, Germany.
The ITF Transport Outlook 2023 is the fourth edition of the ITF’s flagship publication to be translated into Chinese, underscoring its ongoing relevance.
The report, which is also available in English, French and Spanish, concludes that accelerating the sustainable transformation of transport could reduce the need for some infrastructure investments.
Vice Minister Li announced the release of the translation to facilitate its dissemination within China.
He highlighted the importance of making the report available in Chinese, aiming to help Chinese transport professionals closely follow the latest global transport trends. This is expected to support a fair and balanced transition towards zero-emissions and sustainable transport.
Reaching diverse audiences
ITF Secretary-General Young Tae Kim reiterated the importance of ensuring the ITF’s work reaches audiences across the organisation’s member countries.
“I would like to take this opportunity to thank Vice Minister Li for bringing our most important and visible publication to Chinese-speaking readers.
“Special thanks also to the team at the China Academy of Transportation Sciences for translating the report. I look forward to our continuing co-operation on future editions.”
About the ITF Transport Outlook
The ITF Transport Outlook is published biennially, outlining current trends and the short-term outlook of the global transport sector. It also provides long-term forecasts to 2050 for freight and passenger transport under different policy scenarios, along with associated CO2 emissions projections.
The 2023 edition focuses specifically on how the transport sector can achieve the ambitious CO2 emissions reductions set out in the Paris Agreement by 2050. It presents two policy scenarios: a Current Ambition scenario and a High Ambition scenario.
According to the report's findings, all transport decarbonisation measures and commitments undertaken by countries from now until 2050 will only reduce global transport-related CO2 emissions by 3%. This indicates that the transport industry is significantly off-track from achieving the required reductions for climate change goals.
However, if these measures are intensified and accelerated, the sector could reduce its CO2 emissions by about 80% in the next 25 years compared to 2019 levels.
An accelerated shift towards low or zero-carbon transport requires substantial investment. Nonetheless, according to ITF projections, providing core infrastructure for the report’s High-Ambition scenario would require 5% less investment than current policy pathways suggest. In other words, accelerating the reduction of CO2 emissions from transport could help decrease the need for future core infrastructure investments.
Policy recommendations
The report makes five recommendations for policy makers:
- Develop comprehensive strategies for future mobility and infrastructure. Instead of providing infrastructure as a reaction to predicted demand, governments should take a “decide and provide” approach to investment, with a view to achieving certain public policy objectives.
- Accelerate the transition to clean vehicle fleets. Accelerating the transition towards clean vehicles and fuels requires targeted policy support with ambitious objectives and support measures. Enabling infrastructure requires additional investment.
- Implement mode shift and demand-management policies where they are most effective. Measures to reduce trips and travel distances, and encourage the use of more sustainable modes, work well in cities. For longer-distance travel, a transition to cleaner vehicles and fuels is the priority.
- Consider the additional benefits for urban areas when evaluating policies. Many policies to decarbonise urban transport can make mobility more affordable, improve access, reduce congestion, free up space, reduce crash risks and limit air pollutants.
- Reform vehicle taxation to capture external costs of new vehicle fleets. Falling fuel-tax revenues will hit revenues and make fuel taxes less effective as a policy lever as vehicles become emission-free. Road pricing and congestion charging can mitigate both.
Download the Chinese translation of the ITF Transport Outlook 2023 from the ITF website: https://www.itf-oecd.org/itf-transport-outlook-2023-chinese.
Read the report in English: https://www.itf-oecd.org/itf-transport-outlook-2023.
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