Nancy Kete Speaks at Clinton Global Initiative Meeting
Dr. Kete stressed the need for mass transit, smarter land use choices, and cities designed for people - not cars - when dealing with climate change.
Thursday, September 25, 2008 | New York, United States
On September 25, Dr. Nancy Kete, Director of EMBARQ – the World Resources Institute for Sustainable Transport, spoke at the 2008 Clinton Global Initiative Annual Meeting, where she discussed the key role that smarter transportation systems will play in ongoing efforts to deal with climate change and energy security.
During her remarks at the Energy, Climate Change, and Clean Transport session, Dr. Kete stressed that while technological solutions (such as more efficient cars and energy sources like solar or cellulosic ethanol) are important, continuing our myopic focus on private automobiles as the primary means of transport is not the answer. Instead, Kete suggested that in addition to new, more environmentally-friendly technologies, we also address our transportation and energy problems at a more fundamental level -- by promoting mass transit, making smarter land use choices, and creating cities designed for people, not just for cars.
According to Dr. Kete, moving away from societies’ over-reliance on the automobile will be particularly crucial in the developing world. Here, even if cleaner cars and fuels are adopted, the millions of new cars that will soon be on developing countries’ roads will still result in horribly snarled traffic and runaway carbon emissions.
Other panelists at the Energy, Climate Change, and Clean Transport session, which was moderated by Economist correspondent, Vijay Vaitheeswaran, included John Bryson, President and CEO of Edison International, Beth Lowery Vice President of Environment, Energy and Safety Policy at General Motors, and John Melo, Chief Executive Officer of Amyris.
The session was part of the Clinton Global Initiative’s Annual Meeting in New York, which “brought together a diverse group of the world’s most distinguished leaders from government, business, and civil society to examine today's most pressing global challenges and transform that awareness into tangible action.”