FAQs - Frequently asked questions

FAQs: Frequently Asked Questions

Also, have you had a good look at:

18 May: This is a new section. In the days ahead we shall be filling it out with a full set of questions and in due course our best answers to each. For now we post this list just to get the juices flowing, and if we can move you to action, to get in touch and ask your own questions and share your own answers, well this would be a fine place to start. Click here to do just that.

Introduction

Given the very high level of ambition of this project we are regularly challenged from many sides about many aspects of this proposal. Above all what we hear from most people is that this idea of targeting a 20% reduction of CO2 (or whatever is decided as a target) in such a short period is completely unrealistic and will never get done. At least, they tell us, not in any cities they know anything about. These are good challenges, so we thought that it would be useful to share them with you right here up front in the program.

And if of course you have questions or challenges of your own, we welcome them and all you have to do to put them before us is to click here.

Frequently asked questions

Who is behind this program?
What do you mean by: "radical systemic rethink"?
Why a 20 month time horizon? It seems so short as to be unrealistic?
Why do you select CO2 as your target?
Nobody knows for sure if Global Warming is caused by human activity or other natural phenomena beyond man's control. So, if we don't know for sure, why should we expend all this effort (and probably money) to cut CO2 in cities?
If this is just one more climate project? If so, why don't you just leave it to one or more of the existing climate groups? There are a lot of them and they are better equipped than anyone else to make a contribution in this area.
Virtually all of the fastest growing cities in the world are in countries not bound by the Kyoto Protocols. So why should they be interested in this program?
I keep hearing from the media that technology developments from industry and the labs such as hydrogen, fuel cells, etc. are going to take care of the environmental problems, if so what's the panic?
You have a phrase that really confuses me: "car-like mobility"? Is this an anti-car or a pro-car project?
Is this a research project?
All of your materials are in English? But we need to be able to follow and use this in other languages? Do you have plans?
Our city already has a very active transportation improvement program with many of the ideas your are suggesting. So why should we get involved?
Why no coverage of air transport since it is the most important single source of transport air pollution?
Sorry, but I have the feeling this is a Big Brother program in which government is going to tell us citizens what to do and how to travel. Are we going to lose our freedom in the places that do this?
And what about the long term? Are you suggesting that we just forget about it?
What is the role of infrastructure construction in this?
Is this yet another one of those "car free" programs?
Do you really think that you are going to solve these problems with more cycling and walking?
Are you saying more buses? More public transport?
What is the role of new technology in this?
Who is going to do the actual work?
Do all those eminent people whose names appear on your International Advisory Council represent themselves as concerned individual citizens? Or are they committing their organizations to your program?
What are the cities that are undertaking this approach?
What if we do not want to cooperate with you? We can do this on our own.
And what happens, if we try this and then we fail?
It is unrealistic to think that you can achieve anything remotely near to a 20/20 performance in the real world of our cites? Please clarify if you can.
It is not clear where this initiative is to lead to. It should preferably be, not just a carefree policy discourse, but aim to set a new global agenda of political significance particularly in the context of the on-going world-wide broader discourse on "post-2012" climate regime.
Our cities in Japan already have extensive and mature public transport systems. There is not much room left for improvement.
The path to sustainable transport is through major capacity expansions to eliminate congestion, coupled with land use planning. Both of these take time.
You do not seem to understand the enormous complexity of the transport sector in cities, institutional as well as operational. For this reason, it is unrealistic to consider any program that wants to accomplish so much in so short a period of time.
The reality here is that people love their cars and are not about to give them up. Please comment.

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Paying for it

Transport in cities is funded via explicit decisions taken by the public sector, individuals, companies and many other other groups and entities. It costs a lot, but as can be seen in these pages is not delivering value for money. That said, even in what is proposed as a relatively low cost program like 20/20 the money has to come from somewhere. Which brings up questions such as these.

Where are we gong to find the money to pay for this?
When you say that the planning costs for a 20/20 program are on the order of "one meter of urban freeway", what exactly do you have in mind?
If a 20/20 program is, as you propose, revenue neutural, how is that going to work? Where is the funding going to come from?
If you take a certain amoung of funding away from other programs, including long term infrastructure projects, are you proposing that we abandon long term strategic thinking in favor of short term actions?

Q&A

Who is behind this program?

This is a cooperative open society program of the 100% independent citizen based New Mobility Agenda of The Commons. Full information on both programs and their backgrounds is available by clicking here. Beyond this, the basic driving concept behind Kyoto Cities -- that of targeting and achieving very sharp reductions in a very short period (20/20) -- has been endorsed thus far by the more than one hundred recognized leaders, experts and activists from more than forty countries world wide that constitute the International Advisory Council.

What do you mean by that phrase: "radical systemic rethink"?

The backdrop to this perhaps unfortunate phrase is our realization, a long time in coming, that the reason why our city mobility systems are dong so poorly in most places despite all the work and resources that are being poured into them, is that we are in fact trapped in a vision, an understanding of what the entire thing is all about which makes successful resolution impossible. The first step in the solution process is to realize that there is no real solution possible . . . unless we change our basic understanding of what this is all about. To do this we need to take several steps back and look at the issues and trade-offs with fresh unencumbered eyes. As an example, the old thinking that divides our transport choices into two: public or private (read car) transport needs to be swept away entirely. This project sets out a number of ideas as to how we can start to make the move to a fresh approach that has a chance of working, so we can only invite you to read on, starting with the 20/20 introduction here.

Why a 20 month time horizon?

When it comes to anything associated with the dread phrase 'sustainable development', the public is suspicious of the political establishment where rhetoric far outpaces visible results. Local government comes up for reelection every two to four years. This gives your mayor or city council both a sharp stimulus and an opportunity to reach beyond rhetoric and show that concrete progress can be made in your city.

Why do you select CO2 as your target?

There are several answers here. The first is that we feel it is important for any city in its drive to more sustainable mobility to get away from the usual simple list making and various independent (if often excellent) project initiatives, to see if it can find some kind of overarching indicator of global system performance and progress. If you check out the Doctor's Bill section here, you will see that there are in fact a number of candidates for this role, and your city may after its own careful study and preparation settle on a different one. CO2 struck us as a good idea as well because of the Kyoto hot link, which of course is very much in the news and in many countries in deep trouble. Finally, anything that reduces CO2 in city transport will also have to reduce traffic and all its worse concomitants (accidents, local air pollution, lost time, wasted money, etc.). SO even if it is only a surrogate, it is an excellent one.

Nobody knows for sure if Global Warming is caused by human activity or . . .

We will not argue this one here other than to point out (a) that the problems we are addressing here stretch into many other areas of the city and the economy and (b) that we like most others of our colleagues with hands on responsibilities around the world feel that in situations of doubt such as this, the precautionary principle is the way to go. And our reading of this is that the "precautionary principle" is a response to uncertainty in the face of risks to health or the environment. In general it involves acting to avoid serious or irreversible potential harm, despite lack of scientific certainty as to the likelihood, magnitude, or causation of that harm. Fundamental uncertainties derive from our fragmentary understanding of complex ecosystem dynamics, and abundant stochastic variation in environmental parameters. Life, it turns out, is fuzzy and messy. But leadership and citizen respnsibility requres that we make a decision to modify our actions, or not, in the face of this uncertainty.

Is this a research project?

Not in the usual sense of arms-length separation from the action. There is as you will see a central research and monitoring component, but it one with a far more activist approach than the usual ivory tower, since the analytic tools are here deployed as part of the ever on-going action. Moreover, the fact that today's monitoring and instrument systems are capable of providing real time feedback in many parts of the system, opens up new avenues and applications of our ever expanding tool sets.