Transportation 2050: pathways to decarbonization and climate resilience in Latin America and the Caribbean

It is time to act. Climate Change (CC) presents an unprecedented challenge for humanity and thus requires to implement bold policy actions. Recent studies suggest that countries have less than a decade to radically reduce their emissions in order to avoid irreversible damage to our planet. For the transportation sector, one of the largest sources of greenhouse gases worldwide, the magnitude of the challenge is enormous. It implies changing not only energy sources, but also the way people and freight move. Moreover, this change must be fully underway by 2030, in little more than five years. Through the Paris Agreement, the countries of Latin America and the Caribbean have committed to reduce their emissions by 2030. Now is the time to implement actions to meet this commitment. However, in general terms, the region is still far behind the public policy developments seen in other geographies. This applies to all modes of transport: urban mobility and road, air and maritime transportation. This gap is also seen in the preparedness of infrastructure and services to extreme weather events brought about by global warming. In this context, this report analyzes the state of transport as an active and passive subject of CC, identifies gaps with respect to the countries that are at the forefront of the sector's transformation worldwide, and proposes policy recommendations based on the best practices of such countries and on the concept of just transition, in order to build an institutional and policy architecture to accelerate the pace of systemic change that the sector needs to comply with international objectives.