On July 29th, 2020, the World Energy Council and Naturgas (Colombian Association of Natural Gas) organized the forum on air quality. The goal of this forum was to promote the dialogue among stakeholders on public policies for clean energy, sustainable mobility, and air quality in Bogotá.
EfD Colombia Director and Senior Researcher Jorge Bonilla participated as moderator of the discussion panel on sustainable mobility. The other participants of this panel were the president of Naturgas and the director of E-Mobility -ENEL in Colombia.
Senior Researcher Jorge Bonilla explained that from the perspective of the Sustainable Development Goals, Bogotá and Medellín have been the cities in Colombia which have implemented measures for achieving sustainable mobility. For instance, Bogotá has made changes in its bus fleet of Transmilenio, and now 741 buses of transmilenio use gas as fuel. This is an important remark for air quality in Bogotá since public transportation is an important source of particulate matter and carbon dioxide.
The panelists and the moderator discussed about the following topics: the participation of the electricity and gas sector in the sustainable mobility in Colombia, the benefits of using electricity and gas for mobility, the fiscal and tax difficulties for the participation of these two sectors in the mobility sector and policy recommendations for sustainable mobility.
As a conclusion of the panel, Researcher Jorge Bonilla mentioned that there are three important topics that stakeholders and policy makers should consider: a- the importance of using economic instruments for sustainable mobility (for example, different urban taxes); b- the need of preparing cities for sustainable mobility (for example, having public infrastructure for loading electricity cars); c- enhancing citizen’s awareness about the importance of clean and sustainable mobility.
It is possible to see the complete event here (in spanish).