EU minister summit resolves “Graz declaration” on clean transport

On Tuesday 30 October, the EU’s Transport and Environment Ministers met in Graz (Austria) to discuss pathways leading to a European clean mobility. At the end of the day, they resolved the “Graz declaration”.

“A new era starts: clean, safe and affordable mobility for Europe” is the heading of the declaration which details how the European climate goals 2030 should be achieved.

The main features of the declaration are in the area of clean vehicles and decarbonised fuel options, strategies for sustainable mobility management and planning, active mobility to promote health and sustainability, safe and inclusive mobility as well as multimodality and infrastructure.

One of the key aims is the use of clean, zero-emission vehicles as well as alternative, synthetically produced fuels with no resulting greenhouse gas emissions. Another important consideration is the investment in infrastructure to create a network supporting emissions reduction. The summits host country, Austria, plans, for example, to invest more than € 14 billion in rail infrastructure in the next five years. But the summit participants did not focus only on the merits of technology and infrastructure: Austrian Environment Minister Elisabeth Köstinger emphasised that awareness-raising needs to be part of the deal, giving the example of reducing unnecessary trips.

The declaration calls on the European Commission to develop and implement strategies accordingly to achieve “sustainable, clean, safe and affordable mobility in Europe.”

The summit demands a rethink of economic and energy strategies to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Austrian Federal Minister for Transport, Norbert Hofer summarised the actions expressed by the declaration in one word, as “decarbonise!”.

Detailed information, as well as the declaration itself, are available at the Austrian Presidency’s website here.

Story first published by www.orf.at on 30 October 2018.