Context
187 countries have ratified the Paris Agreement committing themselves to robust action to protect the climate. The ultimate goal is to limit global warming to well below 2°C – and if possible to 1.5°C – compared with pre-industrial levels. Transport is a particularly important area of climate policy given the large emissions share attributable to transport as well as rising demand for mobility across the globe. Indeed, there is a growing awareness that the successful transformation of transport systems will be crucial for fulfilling the aims of the Paris Agreement. In order to develop effective long-term policy measures, reliable and comprehensive data is essential. For a complete reduction of transport sector emissions to zero, it will also be necessary to decarbonise the energy sector and use renewable energy for transport. While e-mobility is key to achieve this for road and railway transport, the aviation and maritime sector will need alternative fuels based on green hydrogen.
Objective
The objective of the TraCS project is to monitor and reduce transport sector emissions in developing and emerging countries. In this way, TraCS seeks to help countries achieve their 2030 Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) and 2050 Long-Term Strategies (LTS). In addition, the Berlin PtX Hub will be catalyzing a global breakthrough in the adoption of sustainably produced synthetic PtX fuels and feedstock in sectors that cannot directly use renewable electricity.
Approach
The TraCS team works closely with government officials in partnering countries, advising them in a variety of ways. Specifically, TraCS:
(1) helps to improve national data-collection methods in the transport sector;
(2) assists with the implementation of best practice in emissions monitoring and forecasting;
(3) supports the identification and adoption of effective climate policy measures in transport, thus aiding the NDC process; and
(4) undertakes knowledge sharing in order to encourage the development of local expertise.
TraCS has close ties to national transport and environmental ministries in Kenya, Morocco, and Vietnam. The TraCS team helps its local partners develop forecasts on the transport sector that enable identification of abatement potentials and strategies. TraCS also assists with the development and implementation of associated climate policy measures. A further area of activity is the establishment of reporting and monitoring systems to ensure compliance with targets.
The project promotes the development of local expertise in measuring emissions using techniques that ensure standardized data collection. Through the promotion of international exchange of the knowledge gained in the partner countries, other countries with similar problems benefit from the project activities as well. Moreover, the global use of uniform measurement methods will make transport sector data more consistent and easily comparable between countries.
In order to catalyse more renewable energy in transport, the TraCS team will establish an international secretariat of expertise on sustainable power-to-X technology which will support the global dissemination of knowledge and best practice in the area of e-fuels. The so called Berlin PtX Hub will develop a network for the exchange of knowledge on power-to-X fuels and feedstocks.
Results
In the first funding period (2016–19), the TraCS team engaged in a range of activities in various countries, achieving a number of quantifiable successes.
In Kenya and Vietnam, the TraCS team has helped departments of government to improve data collection, develop forecasts on the transport sector, identify effective climate policy measures, and integrate these measures in the NDC development process. In both countries, these activities, which included the hosting of dedicated workshops and training sessions, contributed significantly to the development of local expertise in data collection and reporting, forecast modeling, and long-term climate policy planning.
Working in close collaboration with the Secretariat of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), the TraCS team developed a "Compendium on Greenhouse Gas Baselines and Monitoring," which it presented at several climate and transport conferences and showcased in an eight-part webinar series.
Furthermore, in cooperation with the Institute for Energy and Environmental Research (ifeu), the TraCS team developed the mathematical model TrIGGER, which partnering countries can use to analyze transport emissions and independently monitor their progress in various transport sub-sectors. To date, the model has been used in Kenya, Tunisia, St. Vincent, Morocco, Peru, and South Africa.