Perspective

To Avoid Climate Disaster, Urban Transportation Must Change, Now

Cities have a key role to play in confronting climate change, and it starts with shared mobility—and taking back the streets from the private car.
A man on an electric bike rides through heavy smog in Shanghai, China.Aly Song/Reuters

Today, hundreds of thousands of students from over 100 countries are walking out of their schools to join a Global Climate Strike, part of a wave of youth protests around the world aimed at demanding immediate government response to the climate crisis. “I don’t want your hope,” said Greta Thunberg, the 16-year-old Swedish student who initiated the movement, in her quiet, eloquent demand at Davos in January. “I want you to act. I want you to act as if you were in a crisis … as if the house were on fire. Because it is.”

The demand? That governments acknowledge the crisis, and move with commensurate speed and action.