PATH2ZERO Celebrates World Sustainable Transport Day 2025
This 26 November 2025, PATH2ZERO joins the global transport community in celebrating World Sustainable Transport Day, a moment to reflect on both the transformative power of transport and the urgent need to decarbonise the sector.
Transport connects people, drives economic growth, and underpins trade and social cohesion. But it also remains one of the world’s most challenging sectors to decarbonise: responsible for nearly a quarter of global greenhouse gas emissions, and still heavily reliant on fossil fuels.
As the UN Secretary-General, António Guterres, underlined this year, “there is no time to waste” in building cleaner, greener, and more resilient transport systems.
Bridging the Gap Between Ambition and Action
While many sectors have begun to stabilise or reduce emissions, transport’s emissions continue to rise. This persistent trend underscores a core challenge: translating high-level climate ambition into targeted, robust, and equitable policies that can transform transport systems in practice.
PATH2ZERO was created to help bridge this gap.
Through a structured two-cycle approach, the project supports policymakers, researchers, and stakeholders with a comprehensive knowledge base and sophisticated modelling tools to design, evaluate, and benchmark realistic pathways to transport decarbonisation.
How PATH2ZERO Supports Sustainable Transport
World Sustainable Transport Day emphasises the need for systems that are safe, affordable, accessible, efficient, resilient, and aligned with long-term environmental and climate goals. PATH2ZERO directly contributes to this vision through:
- Harmonised, high-quality data.
Tools such as P2Z_DataSyncer and P2Z_PolicyFrameMapper ensure that diverse data and
policies across Europe are aligned, mapped, and ready for advanced modelling. This is essential for understanding how transport interacts with other sectors and how changes in one area ripple across the system.
- Advanced modelling for long-term climate action.
PATH2ZERO’s P2Z_Forecaster projects transport activity and emissions up to 2050, enabling stakeholders to explore credible net-zero scenarios, assess economic and distributional impacts, and test the feasibility of various interventions.
- Benchmarking pathways and identifying strategic gaps.
Using the P2Z_Evaluator and P2Z_Benchmarker, the project assesses the effectiveness of existing and proposed policies, revealing where gaps remain and where European and international targets are misaligned.
- Co-creation and stakeholder engagement.
Transport decarbonisation is not only a technical challenge but a societal one. Through the P2Z_Engager, PATH2ZERO brings together policymakers, researchers, industry actors, and civil society to co-create best-practice-informed pathways that are inclusive, feasible, and rooted in real-world needs.
- Supporting stronger policy frameworks.
In its second cycle, PATH2ZERO will refine national and cross-national policy frameworks through tools like P2Z_PolicyFrameFinder and P2Z_SectoralAdviser, ensuring that the pathways developed can meaningfully shape Europe’s transition to sustainable mobility.
Transport as a Catalyst for Sustainable Development
Sustainable transport is not just a climate priority; it is a driver of social inclusion, economic opportunity, reduced inequality, and improved quality of life. By enabling evidence-based decisions, PATH2ZERO contributes to a transport system that supports both people and the planet.
Looking Ahead
On this World Sustainable Transport Day, PATH2ZERO reaffirms its commitment to helping Europe chart a realistic, fair, and data-driven route to transport decarbonisation. Our tools, insights, and collaborative processes will continue to support policymakers and stakeholders in turning ambition into action and in steering the transport sector toward a resilient, net-zero future.
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