Background
The Global Development Commons hosted its second youth webinar. Youth innovators from Brazil, Canada and Jordan shared details on their projects to tackle climate change in their local communities. To learn more about the panelists and their work, read below.
Challenge: The transport sector is by far the largest energy consumer in Jordan, and the second largest contributor to emissions in Amman with 31% of the total GHG emissions in the city, and traffic congestion is the top challenge facing the city. On-road vehicles contribute to the majority of transportation emissions. The number of private vehicles in Amman has increased dramatically, exceeding 1.2 million vehicles and 7.5 million daily internal trips. The growth in vehicular traffic has risen by over 10 percent per year since 2005. This is a result of the absence of a multi-modal transport system, which has formed a less transit-oriented community.
Solution: The lack of a reliable public transportation system in Amman has caused severe congestions as people are preferring to rely on private cars for their daily commute. Rush hours are considered the worst specially among the business zones where most of large corporations are located. Therefore, the solution is based on a carpooling scheme targeting business zones in particular, as matching employees is projected to be easier considering the high chance of similar working hours. The solution also proposes partnerships with governmental entities, as well as sponsorships from large corporations within the targeted business zone.
Impact: Introducing the idea of carpooling in a more systemic way that would allow people to share the cost of traveling from different destinations to their workplaces is a considerable opportunity to reduce traffic, time waste, cost of fuel, cost of parking and the overall running cost of a vehicle. Furthermore, since large proportion of the salary that is being devoted to transportation, carpooling would help reduce costs associated with transportation, particularly for the poor and vulnerable people. On a macro scale, this has a considerable potential to enhance air quality by reducing GHG emissions, which helps mitigating climate change and its negative effects, as well as helping Jordan in its commitment to the Paris Agreement and the 2030 agenda.
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