By Chris Grundler, Senior Advisor to the Crux Alliance, and former Director of the Office of Transportation and Air Quality at the Environmental Protection Agency.
The Crux Alliance was in New York City last week for the annual Climate Week gathering on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly. Members from across the Alliance joined to share their expertise and on-the-ground success stories, demonstrating the critical role unbiased civil society groups play in climate decision-making and action.
As thousands of people were arriving in New York, Hurricane Helene made landfall, leaving a 600-mile trail of tragedy and destruction across the Southeastern U.S. This tragedy lent an even greater poignancy to this year’s Climate Week theme of “It’s Time” for decisions and actions on climate. As noted by the organizers, attendees left the week “with a feeling we can do this, together,” which aligns perfectly with the Crux Alliance’s networked approach to advancing bolder policy. For my part, I came away with renewed energy after listening to the many stories of progress from Crux Alliance speakers and others throughout the week. Even in the midst of the climate crisis, we know we can, indeed, meet this crisis together.
Crux hosted two well-attended events this year, Charging Ahead: Global Strategies for Bus Electrification, and Global Perspectives: Energy Justice and the Future of Climate. Even though the expert speakers represented very diverse geographies, they discussed facing related challenges and relying on similar solutions sets in their efforts to lower emissions and improve people’s quality of life.
The bus event was held on Governors Island, a beautiful 43-acre public park and urban forest just off of Lower Manhattan and the site of the New York Climate Exchange. The panel featured speakers from Crux Alliance members the Institute for Transportation Development and Policy (ITDP) and the International Council for Clean Transportation (ICCT), as well as speakers from Drive Electric, the World Bank, the New York utility ConEd, and the U.S. Department of Transportation.
Attendees heard how bus electrification is so much more than simply finding the resources to purchase electric buses. The effort requires a comprehensive urban and technical planning approach to design the optimal bus routes, right-sizing of buses and batteries, locating the chargers in the right places, and other infrastructure improvements.
This is why the Crux Alliance urban mobility and vehicle teams from ITDP and ICCT are lending their technical expertise to support rapid bus electrification in Brazil, India, Indonesia, and beyond. Global South countries have been leaders in Bus Rapid Transit, and are now leading the electrification of bus systems. Brazil has committed to spend $8.8B on electric buses, with a goal of electrifying 12,000 buses by 2030. India has launched a $7B program for electric buses and set an audacious goal of 50,000 electric buses by 2027. Achieving these targets will be no small task, and the work of ITDP and ICCT will be critical to effective implementation.
Panelists acknowledged that electrification of transportation is necessary but insufficient to reach our climate goals, and that investments will continue to be needed in infrastructure for walking, biking, and public spaces to make cities more compact and livable.
All the panelists concurred on the need to unlock international financing mechanisms to support the transition. For example, multi-lateral banks can work to aggregate demand for electric buses, as well as invest in necessary improvements to electricity grids.
The energy justice event featured speakers from four Crux Alliance members: the Regulatory Assistance Project, the Global Building Performance Network, CLASP, and ITDP. The founder of Encolor, an energy equity consulting firm, also joined to share her reflections. Panelists highlighted the vast inequalities in our energy and transportation systems, which are exacerbated by climate change.
For example, Bishal Thapa of CLASP described the suffering in Delhi, India this summer, which experienced 37 consecutive days of 107-degree temperatures. Sadly, one hundred people died, most of them people who did not have access to cooling (the numbers are likely higher but difficult to assess). Access to cooling devices such as efficient fans can make the difference between life and death. And as Clarisse Linke from ITDP shared, in Brazil, transportation costs make up a quarter of a poor family’s income and transportation infrastructure is not equitably distributed.
Consistent with the theme of climate week, this event reinforced the conviction that it’s time that equity considerations be at the center of designing climate policy, not an afterthought. When designing climate solutions, policymakers need to be intentional about addressing climate inequities and energy poverty at the outset and ensure sure the benefits of policies are equally distributed. Moreover, civil society institutions, whether public or private, must build greater capacity to identify, illuminate, and understand climate and energy inequities, as well as develop the capacity to solve them.
These were not the only events the Crux Alliance participated in. At many events throughout the week, Alliance members spoke about how to build resilient, efficient, and green transportation systems, about how to partner to provide universal access to efficient cooling, on advancing sustainable cooling in India, and how to harness Africa’s potential for green growth and sustainable jobs.
Extreme weather events like Helene serve as a stark reminder for why this work is so urgently needed, but we do know that with Alliance members lending their deep expertise and experience to cut planet-heating emissions and to strengthen equity, we can create a sustainable, clean energy future that benefits all people.
