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Iran’s statement before the 85th UNECE-ITC - 21 February 2023
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Statement
by
Mr. Javad HEDAYATI,
Head of Delegation, Director General for Department of Transit and International Transport, Road Maintenance and Transportation Organization,
Ministry of Roads and Urban Development of the Islamic Republic of Iran
at the 85th UNECE-ITC meeting
under the panel topic:
Bridging regulators and innovators to bring to scale critical technologies supporting climate change mitigation actions
Geneva – 21 February 2023
Thank you Chair,
At the very outset, allow me to thank UNECE secretariat including ITC colleagues for their excellent arrangements. I would also like to extend my appreciation toward all honourable Ministers and distinguished speakers for their insightful and rich statements. In fact, the statements will shed light on our future work to follow the right path in a concerted manner.
Mr. Chairman,
Listening carefully to what stated by the distinguished speakers, I would like to touch upon the following points:
It’s crystal clear that mobility has crucial role in the world and the economy and an efficient and accessible transport system is essential for the quality of life of people of the world and for planetary health. However, this sector remains one of the biggest environmental challenges that we are facing. As per to International Energy Agency (IEA), transport is responsible for 24 % of direct carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions due to the burning of fossil fuels, with three-quarters of these emissions being produced by road vehicles.
Improved vehicle efficiency, improved efficiency of vehicle use, dramatically reduce the GHG intensity of fuels and accelerate the transition to low carbon vehicles, are among solutions to reduce emission but significant CO2 reductions could be achieved at relatively low cost with established technologies.
New and emerging technologies, from electric cars and buses to zero-carbon producing energy sources, as well as policy innovations, are critical for combating climate change, but to be effective, they must ensure that transport strategies benefit everyone, including developing and specially the least developed countries through the policy of lagging no one behind.
Mr. Chairman,
"Innovations, driven by new technologies, evolving consumer preferences and supportive policy making, are changing the transport landscape," as Mr.Liu Zhenmin, Under-Secretary-General, United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs said in forward part of the Interagency report for second Global Sustainable Transport Conference in 2021. “While they hold tremendous potential for hastening the transformation to sustainability, they also come with the risk that they could further entrench inequalities, impose constraints on countries in special situations, or present additional challenges for the environment.”
The increasing emissions and rising temperatures are causing more extreme weather events, which in turn are also highly disruptive to transportation and transportation infrastructure. And it will take significant investments to ensure that transport infrastructure is upgraded to become climate resilient.
Transport is especially costly for developing countries especially the least developed countries. “Bridging regulators and innovators to bring to scale critical technologies supporting climate change mitigation actions” as the topic of this panel says and new innovative technologies when appropriately applied, are key to solving many of the challenges to achieving sustainable transport. Moreover, the deployment of existing solutions, such as low or zero-carbon vehicles, automated safety, and intelligent transport systems, must be accelerated.
Mr. Chairman,
To address these challenges, we believe that governments especially our developed partners and international bodies need to provide the regulations, policies and incentives to accelerate the development and deployment of new transport technologies, including digital applications, while ensuring that no one is left behind.
More importantly, there is a need for standards and targets, such as for accelerating the phase-in of low-emissions technology accompanied by a winding down and phasing-out of deployment of fossil fuel-powered options. Furthermore, the transition to low carbon emission should be done phase by phase considering the level of development of the countries.
In my country, though we are oil producing countries, we have endeavored in that line to transit to low carbon emission system, including using natural gas rather than gasoline, solar panels, expansion of our electrically powered subways, wind powers, empowering startups dealing with optimizing transport efficiency index, expansion of related knowledge based enterprises, renovation of truck fleets and improving fuel quality standards.
Mr. Chairman,
Last but not least, we are of the belief that climate mitigation is a must and harnessing climate change is a technology dependent question. Therefore, bearing in mind that climate change has worldwide consequences, technology transfer should come into the international agenda to enable developing countries particularly the least developed countries to mitigate it. As there are no one size fits for all, different treatment should be taken into consideration when coming to phasing out the fossil fuel energy.
We also believe that UN can play crucial role on technology transfer areas and coordinate the move toward the low carbon emission. In fact, political will of the developed countries, facilitate this transition for developing and especially the least developed countries in particular when accompanied by suitable framework along with conducive enabling environment.
Concluding my words, in joining with distinguished Minister of Transport of Namibia, I would like to reiterate that among all cascading challenges including climate change, Unilateral sanctions, against UN charter and international law, has hindered the sanctioned countries of the kind to achieve SDGs let alone to transition to low carbon level while increasing the road casualties now reaching to 16000 innocent people in 2022 in my country. Therefore, States are strongly urged to refrain from promulgating and applying any unilateral sanctions.
Thank you