On June 8th, the Shell Foundation is organizing an international expert group meeting here in Paris in support of their plan to establish a "Centre for Sustainable Transportation, Energy, and Environment" -- the announced goal of which is acceleration of implementation of policies and technologies that make transportation more environmentally sustainable, improved analysis of present trends as a means towards this goal, and assistance for capacity building of analytical capabilities, principally in developing regions of the World. A core grant of between USD 750K and USD 1500K for a minimum period of five years has been committed and a Centre leader identified. A good part of these resources will flow to partner cities and projects, primarily in developing countries.

The 8 June Workshop has been convened to discuss key elements of the proposed activities of the Centre, allowing interested persons and institutions to comment on the thoughts underlying the creation of this Centre and its directions. The Workshop findings will be made available on the Shell Foundation Web site. (You can get the whole story on that by clicking on Agenda and Background Paper right here.) Further details can be had from the Shell Foundation or through contacting Kurt Hoffman, Deputy Director, Shell Foundation, Shell Centre, London SE1; sf@shellfoundation.org, Tel: +44 207 934 4992. For details on the workshop, contact Lee Schipper at ljschipper@lbl.gov, phone +33 1 40576714.

Make Your Voice Heard

Based on our first read of these documents, it strikes us as important that the points of view of the members of our informal world "group" be somehow communicated to the meeting. In all their diversity, and with the not-inconsiderable authority that they command. It's fair to say, if you check through the various discussion fora found here, that we as an ad hoc international group bring to these matters a very wide range of backgrounds and experience. And while most of us are sensitive to the energy/transport interface as an important one, we also in many cases have repeatedly made the point that the energy vector needs to be kept in its rightful place. There are other priorities and perhaps what we as a group can contribute is to use our collective voice to make sure that these points and values do not get lost in the shuffle .

But even if you can't make it to Paris to attend this expert group meeting on the 8th (which as it happens is already over-subscribed), you can nonetheless make your voice heard. Here is how this might work. One or two members of The Commons with a lifetime interest and involvement with sustainable transportation issues (which as you doubtless know we always qualify with that additional important phrase, social justice, as a consistent high priority) will be attending the Workshop -- and we propose that we find a way to work as 'ambassadors' to represent the views, suggestions and counsel of the couple of thousand people around the world with in-depth experience in our topic who drop in from time to time to the @New Mobility Forum, including those who read and contribute to the Journal of World Transport Policy and Practice.

As it happens, we here at The Commons consistently try to take a rather 'economical' position as far as physical conferences and travel in general are concerned. Which means that when we find ourselves involved in such get-togethers we try to get as much "policy and practice" bang per pound of CO2 as we can. In this case since we have been invited (and since we can walk over there in about 30 minutes max), it occurred to us that it might be a terrific opportunity if we show up bringing not only with our views, prejudices and experience, but also armed with the thoughts and suggestions of all of you out there who think about and work for more sustainable transport and social justice 365 days a year.

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The virtual conference

• Geographic Extension: This is a great opportunity to use our networking tools to bring in many more people from many more places.
• More points of view: It has long been our belief that a significant number of the sustainability problems of the transport sector are the direct result of too much reliance on too narrow a range of expertise. The virtual conference gives us the means to cast the net far wider than is usually the case in workshops of this sort.
• More Time: The topic of the workshop -- what can someone like Shell do to make a positive contribution in terms of sustainable patterns -- is of course far too important to be relegated to a single group on a single place on a single day in June. So, the immediate goal of the virtual conference is to provide a visible showcase for exchanges and discussions on our topic for the full month of June. (And if that proves insufficient, we are well prepared to keep going.)
• Broader Impact: While the putative goal of these exchanges is to guide the Shell Foundation in orienting their own immediate efforts, the dialogue which we are engaging concerns matters which go far beyond the limits of this single near term organizational goal. By putting the discussions in this broader framework and making making the information and findings available in this much more flexible and accessible form, the group can in this way help extend the knowledge base of the sustainable transport community and movement in a number of useful ways.

The key to creative participation in this all-volunteer activity under The Commons is the set of links that you will see under the Workshop heading on the menu to your left. To explain briefly:

• The Agenda -- a good place to start.
• The Background Paper -- prepared by Lee Schipper of the IEA to guide the workshop. In fact, this is the document which we propose to lead off the discussions and exchanges here which we would hope in turn to convey to the workshop and the organizers. (Note the line numbers which are intended to facilitate reference.)
• The Shell Foundation -- you may also find some use in making a visit to their website to get some of the context on this.
• The Discussion Forum -- the informal forum that has been set up under eGroups,while admittedly not a perfect instrument, is the tool we are using to open up a dialogue and gather comments and suggestions which can then be accessed by all interested.
• Sharing your views and counsel: -- You have several options for this central component of this informal support conference.
  1. Share your inputs and comments direct with the entire group via newmob@yahoogroups.com
  2. Send on a private message to the @New Mobility team at ShellComments@NewMobility.org with your observations and suggestions, and eventual instructions for how to factor into the meeting and any eventual final report or recommendations coming out of it.
  3. Or alternatively, you might prefer to contact the organizers yourselves with your ideas and recommendations: sf@shellfoundation.org

• Contributions! -- These are introduced and presented daily in Yikes, the e-mag of @New Mobility which for the duration is being given over to the latest news and contributions to the workshop. Check it out, including the archives. Thus far you will find:
  • . B. Finn on "And tell me, what has posterity ever done for us?"
    
  • Peter Newman brainstorming on City/car developments to 2020-2030
  • Toronto's Pollution Probe Leads the Way
    
  • The Hodson Rules
    
  • Marcus Wiggen on the Spatially Disadvantaged
  • Peter Wiederkehr on Hard-won Lessons from the OECD EST program
  • Sierra Club on Less Boring and Ugly Streets
  • Canada's CST Comments on sustainable transportation
    
  
  
• What Next? -- Our challenge from here will be to make sure that all this input and these recommendations find good use. This might take any of several forms, and it may be that the best way to do it will itself come out of the discussions.
  • One path might be simply to draw the organizers attention to the Discussion Forum itself, together with some pointers to the best of the Yikes! archives on this.
  • Alernatively, one or more of us might try to make some sort of synthesis with selected sections and points fashioned into a group position paper, which could then be communicated to the workshop, the organizers, and perhaps to other groups and programs as well.

We look forward with very real interest to seeing how this works out. And if you have any ideas that can help us do a better job, this is the place to let us know.

postmaster@newmobility.org

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