On June 8, 2022, Southern Weekly launched online the survey report “Towards Zero Emissions Mobility: A Study on Urban Public Awareness, Behavior, and Drivers” by Ipsos, with the support of Energy Foundation China. The report provided insights into public mobility options, with the aim of informing the formulation and implementation of policies and actions that would accelerate the low carbon transition of people’s movement. At the event, experts in transportation and urban planning and journalists from 20-plus media outlets put their heads together over such topics as how to build an environment for zero emissions mobility.

Zhong SHEN, Chief Research Officer of Ipsos Beijing, presented the report findings. He said that the report was based on a pubic survey of urban transportation options, mobility services, policy implementation, and communications for zero emissions mobility. Through qualitative discussions and studies combined with a quantitative analysis of 3,500 samples from people living in cities above the prefectural level, the survey team first examined public awareness of topics related to low and zero emissions transportation choices, their understanding of carbon issues, the current status of mobility, and the drivers of low emissions mobility, and then made policy and communication recommendations on how to enhance public participation in low and even zero emissions mobility. According to the report, 38 percent of the public “embrace low emissions mobility.” The report also laid out feedback from urban residents on mobility infrastructure and services and their anticipations for improvement. It found that the drivers of public mobility options were diversified and personalized needs such as flexibility, predictability, and comfort deserved greater attention from public transit providers, said Mr. Shen.

Ying LIU, Deputy General Manager of Beijing Best Transport Tech Co., Ltd. spoke on the future trends and strategies of zero emissions mobility, while Zhigao WANG, Senior Director of Energy Foundation China’s Low Carbon Cities Program, spoke on urban planning that is friendly to zero emissions mobility. Ms. Liu said that over recent years, the public had paid increasing attention to the comfort, brand recognition, and performance of electric vehicles (EVs), and as a result customers were more satisfied with EVs as their quality approached the level that would meet the car owners’ needs. According to Mr. Wang, Chinese cities faced two challenges in low emissions mobility: still sprawling with a high density, the cities had a high emissions mobility structure that would be hard to change; and the current urban roads and spaces were less friendly toward people, compared with private cars.

Jiangyan WANG, Vice President of the Peking University Planning and Design Institute and Executive Director of the China Sustainable Transportation Center, and Huiming GONG, Senior Director of Energy Foundation China’s Transportation Program, together with Ying LIU and Zhigao WANG, participated in the roundtable discussion on how to build a people-friendly environment for zero emissions mobility. The experts agreed that green mobility required systematic efforts and no single solution could address all the problems out there. In embracing green mobility—instead of asking the public to stick to a certain low emissions transportation option for all of their mobility activities—cities should seek to increase the frequency of green mobility within a certain period of time and to expand the proportion of green mobility in a certain long-distance mobility activity, based on all the available vehicle and mobility options across different scenarios.