A lunchtime conversation on what metro areas can practically do on transport to decarbonise at pace whilst becoming more resilient

The climate crisis is here and now. More extreme weather conditions are the new normal, with the threat of far worse to come. Urban areas are significant sources of greenhouse gases and the places where the battle to decarbonise needs to be fought and won.

So, just what should be done to drive down carbon emissions from urban transport and what can the transport sector do to help our cities cope as the weather gets wilder? And which cities in the UK and around the world are the ones to watch and learn from?

Against the backdrop of the forthcoming COP27 conference, join us for a free lunchtime conversation with Caroline Watson of C40 Cities, Jonathan Bray of the Urban Transport Group and Glenn Lyons of the University of the West of England on how we meet the urgent challenge of decarbonising urban transport at pace.

About the panel

Caroline Watson

Caroline is Programme Director of Transport at C40 Cities Climate Leadership Group. 

Caroline is responsible for driving and delivering C40’s global transport strategy. She leads on C40’s Green and Healthy Streets Declaration where 36 cities have committed to procure only zero emission buses and introduce zero emission areas in their cities. Caroline also oversees the transport networks at C40 Cities, facilitating best practice sharing and research to advance the shift to sustainable transport.

Previously, Caroline worked at environmental behaviour change charity Global Action Plan where, as a Senior Partner, she led their Air Quality Portfolio. Prior to this, Caroline was Strategy Manager at the Energy Saving Trust managing electric vehicle research and delivery programmes.

Caroline has also worked as Policy Advisor in the UK's Environment Agency and as a Researcher to a Member of the UK Parliament.

Jonathan Bray

Jonathan has been the Director of the Urban Transport Group since 2008.

Jonathan’s career has been about developing progressive policies on transport and advocating effectively for them. This includes changing national policy for the better by being one of the leaders of the network which ended the hegemony of the roads lobby on national transport policy in the nineties through to winning better bus powers for transport authorities which are now being used to bring local bus services back under public control.

In recent years he has also been a visiting senior fellow at LSE Cities, a Commissioner on the Commission on Travel Demand, a fellow of the Chartered Institute of Highways and Transportation, an Academician at the Academy of Urbanism, a Director of Good Journey CIC and a member of the UITP Organising Authorities and Policy Boards.

Glenn Lyons (interviewer)

Glenn is the Mott MacDonald Professor of Future Mobility at the University of West of England, in Bristol.

Spanning between academia and practice, he specialises in addressing transport sector developments in the context of ongoing and uncertain social and technological change. He has helped bring forward the ‘decide and provide’ transport planning paradigm and led the development of FUTURES – a six-stage vision-led approach to strategic planning for an uncertain world. He is the overall co-ordinator of the three-year pan-European project ‘Triple Access Planning for an Uncertain World’. With his role as a member of the Welsh Roads Review Panel, and previous senior-level secondments into the UK Department for Transport (DfT) and the New Zealand Ministry of Transport, he has considerable experience of stakeholder engagement across policymaking, consultancy and academia.

Glenn is also a trustee of the Rees Jeffreys Road Fund. He recently led the development of a series of technology roadmaps for the reduction and removal of carbon dioxide emissions from UK transport – work for the DfT that supported the Government’s Transport Decarbonisation Plan. He is a vocal supporter of the need for decisive and urgent action to address the climate emergency.