Page 265 - Çevre Şehir İklim İngilizce - Sayı 3

Cihan Erçetin

steps for the environment are being implemented in various parts of the world by
adopting the sustainable and clean transportation goals specified in many national
and supranational policy papers. The necessity of adopting a more sustainable
development that minimizes the negative effects on the environment has become
a universally accepted goal by many countries (Babalık-Sutcliffe, 2009). The leading
ones among the policy papers emphasizing sustainable transportation include
Brundtland Report published in 1987 (United Nations, 1987), the UN Conference
on Environment and Development in Rio de Janeiro in 1992 (Earth Summit, 1992),
the Kyoto Protocol in 1998 (Kyoto Protocol, 1998). In terms of urban transportation,
OECD Sustainable Transportation Conference (OECD, 1996) in 1996 and the
Habitat II meeting in İstanbul in the same year raised the issue of sustainability
focused on urban planning. According to the 2001 Habitat Document (UNCHS
[Habitat], 2001), urban transportation has an essential role on the development of
sustainable human settlements, and this document emphasizes the importance
of the transportation sector to achieve sustainability goals. In addition, the World
Bank Urban Transport Strategy (World Bank, 2002) helped to highlight the impact
of transport on urban development, the environment and poverty alleviation, the
importance of non-motorized transport, the importance of public transport, as well
as a framework for urban transport planning that includes rapid public transport,
demand management, traffic management and charging methods. EU White
Paper on Transport (European Union, 2001) also focuses on the need to create a
more balanced transport system that includes the positive effects of clean urban
transport types (Babalık-Sutcliffe, 2009).
The main reason for the emphasis on the concept of sustainable transportation
within the framework of European Union transportation policies is the huge
increase in passenger and freight transportation in Europe over the past 30
years and the traffic congestion, air pollution and traffic accidents due to this
increase. Furthermore, the most preferred transport modes for both passenger
and freight transportation in the last 30 years have become the ones that
cause most of the harmful environmental impacts. Besides the automobiles
have been the most widely used transport mode in passenger traffic since
1970, it has been observed that the traffic increase in those years was primarily
linked to use of private cars, and secondly to the passenger transport by air.
These two transport modes are the ones that pollute the environment at the
most. Considering the distribution of greenhouse gas emission by sectors by
2020, it is observed that the emissions from transportation constitute 16.2% of
total emissions while 11.9% of them are directly caused by road transportation
(Our World in Data, 2020). This means that the use of private cars in particular
is a significant global energy consumer (World Energy Council, 2007). Taking
into account the contribution of transportation to the factors affecting the
future of sustainable development in cities, it can be easily stated that there

250 Journal of Environment, Urbanization and Climate