Draft as of 14 September 2015
(Comments to ecomobility@iclei.org, by 29 Sept 2015 latest)
The Johannesburg Declaration
on EcoMobility and Climate Smart Cities
Representing cities committed to sustainable and low carbon
urban development, we request all levels of government to
prioritize sustainable urban mobility by agreeing to bold
decisions resulting in ambitious action at the UN-Climate
Summit in December 2015 (COP21, Paris) and the Habitat III
Conference in October 2016 (Quito).
We are aware that the transport sector ...
 Causes xx% of global CO2
emissions,
 Consumes xx% of the global
energy consumption,
 Causes xx death and xx injuries...,
 Costs xx hours of precious lifetime
of every commuter,
 Plagues urban life and human
wellbeing,
 Costs xx, i.e. xx% of everyone’s
annual income.
To decide later if we use the box or not
We furthermore urge all levels of government to give their full support for the implementation
of transport related targets on road safety, air quality, energy efficiency and urban transport
under the recently adopted Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).
We highlight the importance of COP21 in reaching an agreement on more inclusive and
ambitious action on Climate Change. We request an inclusive ambitious agreement that
recognizes and supports activities by all actors, in particular those by local and subnational
governments in realizing EcoMobility policies and programs and help to make our cities
better places to live globally.
We city leaders
- Share a vision for our cities with sustainable mobility that is accessible, affordable,
safe, secure, inclusive and environmentally friendly promotes the well-being of all.
- Recognise that EcoMobility means traveling through integrated, socially inclusive and
environmentally-friendly transport options, giving priority to walking and cycling,
public transport and then car sharing and other forms of sustainable mobility.
- State that transitioning to EcoMobility based urban transport systems will improve the
energy efficiency of persons and goods on a per kilometer base.
- Agree that urban mobility plays an important role in curbing greenhouse gas
emissions especially from private motorisation and that low carbon mobility is key to
a sustainable future for our cities, regions and countries.
- Call upon fellow local-government leaders, national and sub-national governments,
development agencies, to support the accelerated implementation of EcoMobility in
cities across the world.
- Make everybody aware of the extremely high costs for public bodies and private
households and externalities as a result of intensive private car use, large spaces
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dedicated to parking – all of which exceed the revenues that governments may
receive in fuel taxes and road pricing income.
- Commit ourselves to urban mobility policies that replace car centered cities by
people centered cities, with higher density and substantial public space in which
people are encouraged and feel safe to use a diverse range of non-motorized and
public transport based mobility options and spend more time in public spaces.
We city leaders commit to
- Apply policies and instruments to make our cities more compact and reduce the
distances travelled to access jobs, markets and essential social services in our cities.
- Base our mobility plans and infrastructure projects on priorities for people friendly
transport modes such as walking, cycling and public transport.
- Give priority in our public space for multifunctional use and the coexistence of the
different modes of mobility (streets for people instead streets for cars).
- Prioritise road space to people friendly transport modes such as walking, cycling and
public transport, thereby replacing past policies that prioritized cars over people.
- Invest in long-term mobility solutions with low maintenance costs in order to ensure
affordability for future generations who will likely live under resource constraints.
- Introduce new and innovative forms of public transport, such as urban cable cars,
lifts, escalators, especially in those cities with relevant altitude differences or other
circumstances, missing links or short cuts in their railway networks expansion.
- Support and introduce concepts of new and shared mobility (including car sharing,
public cars and bike sharing, car pooling, paratransit as informal public transport),
integrate their needs for special, privileged parking regulations and meeting points
and go in/out stops in our city development and transport plans as well as by fiscal
incentives.
- Encourage and support the development of new business models for such new and
shared mobility.
- Discourage unsustainable habits in urban transport such as car use with only one
person in the car, the growing use of disproportionately heavy passenger cars
(SUVs), cars with high noise, high fuel consumption and pollution or the use of cars
for short distance trips in the neighborhood.
- Improve safety conditions to avoid traffic, such as for driving children to school.
- Support alternative fuels to diesel and petrol, including gas and electricity, especially
for light electric vehicles, with the understanding that to optimize climate benefits the
electricity is produced from renewable energy sources.
- Create more equal opportunities for pedestrians and cyclists through the introduction
of area-wide traffic calming, speed limits of 20-30 /h in residential areas, shared
traffic spaces and segregated facilities for walking and cycling outside such areas to
introduce the highest possible coexistence into the urban traffic.
- Improve road safety through adoption of zero fatalities approaches in cities, which
have proven to greatly reduce fatal road crashes and the number of injuries in those
countries, e.g. Sweden, where they have been in place for some time. Prioritize the
safety of children in traffic; the most vulnerable participants in traffic.
- Strengthen our efforts towards behavioural change including through communication
and marketing of EcoMobility.
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- Engage with public and corporate employers to introduce incentive programs that will
result in a greater use of public transport, walking and cycling for commuting to work.
-
Work with the private sector to develop logistic and goods delivery systems to reduce
lorry or truck access to urban areas.
-
Introduce combined passenger and freight transport on local and regional railway
systems and small scale freight handling points to encourage a decentralised rail
based freight system which also covers medium and short distance freight transport.
- Introduce monitoring and reporting mechanisms that measure our efforts to introduce
EcoMobility: increase in walking and cycling and public transport use and decrease
in private car use.
We city leaders request all national and sub-national governments to
- Acknowledge the importance of sustainable urban transport infrastructure and
services as a condition for just, inclusive, prosperous, resilient and sustainable cities.
- Adopt the paradigm of EcoMobility and related policies and ensure that legal
frameworks and implementation instruments enable and foster EcoMobility.
- End subsidies for car ownership and car usage, which have the intended or
unintended consequence of incentivising personal automobile use, such as fuel
subsidies.
- Establish national programs to support urban EcoMobility infrastructure and services
or where these are in existence significantly scale these up.
- Direct financial support to programs and projects that support the uptake of
EcoMobility in cities and that will result in greater investments in public transport
systems as well for walking and cycling that serve a majority of the population and
urban area.
- Ease the direct access by local and regional government to public and private
international, national and local financing opportunities for sustainable urban mobility.
- Modify road standards, legislation, regulation and codes to provide for and facilitate
EcoMobility.
- Challenge and enable creativity and innovation at the local level, offer national model
projects to test new mobility patterns, allow experiments and encourage municipal
cooperation mechanisms for regional transportation systems.
- Support and implement national programs, which reduce traffic for goods and freight
delivery in urban areas.
- Strengthen programs of their international development agencies to implement
EcoMobility in cities.
- Encourage public and private entrepreneurship for EcoMobility.
- Enter in a dialogue with car manufacturers, vendors and car dependent labour
unions to raise their understanding for, and buy in, to an EcoMobility based future
urban transport system.
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We city leaders call upon Parties to the UNFCCC and global climate community who
convene in Paris in December 2015 for the UN Climate Summit and governments who
convene in Quito in October 2016 for Habitat III, the international development
agencies, bi- and multi-lateral agencies, non-governmental organisations, and
businesses alliances in the mobility sector to:
- Acknowledge the huge potential of the accelerated implementation of EcoMobility to
reduce the CO2 emissions from the transportation sector.
- Ensure that an inclusive and ambitious climate regime is adopted in Paris (i.e. Paris
Climate Package consisting of an agreement that will be presented for ratification and
series of COP decisions) that recognize role of local and subnational governments as
governmental stakeholders in the global efforts on climate change
- Engage and empower local and sub-national governments in the full implementation
of ‘Paris Climate Package’ and the efforts to raise pre2020 ambition by creating new
and additional policy tools, guidelines and programmes that will enable national
governments to tap the potential of local and subnational climate action.
- Work closely with national and sub-national governments to implement EcoMobility in
cities.
- Redirect available investment sources from infrastructure for private automobile to
sustainable transportation options for people and goods.
- Provide and allow direct access to necessary financial resources for expanding public
transportation systems, expand walking and cycling facilities and scaling up of shared
mobility.
- Support the adoption of cleaner bus fleets through fiscally responsible incentive
schemes.
- Provide technical support and capacity building activities to cities to increase their
awareness on EcoMobility and to design and implement EcoMobility projects in cities
Support the adoption of cleaner bus fleets by investing in research and manufacturing
of vehicles running on clean fuels.
- Introduce performance measurement tools and techniques as an input to creating and
strengthening urban mobility plans.
- Support local and subnational governments in developing, and making them aware of
measures and policies that focus on human needs and scale.
By adopting this Johannesburg Declaration on EcoMobility and Climate Smart Cities
we reaffirm our commitment to the above goals and underline that urban mobility trends can
only be changed if we have a coordinated, integrated and dedicated approach.
By agreeing to this declaration we confirm that we will work with our subnational and
national level governments, international development agencies, bi- and multi-laterals and
more importantly with each other to make EcoMobility a reality in our cities.

This declaration has first been endorsed by city leaders who convened in
Johannesburg, South Africa , on the occasion of the second EcoMobility World Festival
and the EcoMobility Dialogues in October 2015.

The declaration is/ will be supported by cities participating in the EcoMobility Alliance,
the ICLEI Council on behalf of all ICLEI Members. Endorsement by all local and
regional governments who wish to call upon national governments, international
organizations and fellow city leaders is invited.

The declaration is also supported by organizations and agencies who act as partners
to the EcoMobility Festival and EcoMobility Alliance, including SLoCaT.
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Further information:
ICLEI – Local Governments for Sustainability
World Secretariat, Bonn, Germany
EcoMobility Team
Santhosh Kodukula, EcoMobility Program Manager
ecomobility@iclei.org
www.ecomobilityfestival.org
(reference to Suwon Impulse document)
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Endorsers include (with logo):
SLoCaT, xxxx