'Pedalea por el Futuro': EU in Chile organises a Bike Ride in Santiago together with the Chilean Minister of Transport and EU Member States to promote the National Strategy for[...]

The objective was to stress the importance of the Chilean National Strategy for Sustainable Mobility (ENMS), a guiding document supported by the Euroclima+ Program to meet Chile's objective to reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and contribute to the goal of achieving carbon neutrality by 2050. The Strategy contains 7 objectives and 30 short, medium, and long-term measures to mitigate the negative effects of transport on the environment. It seeks to promote public transport and active mobility, through various actions supported by state agencies, such as regional authorities, governors, mayors, the private sector, and citizens.

The EU Ambassador, León de la Torre, pointed out that "sustainable and low-emission mobility is one of the most important measures we can promote if we want to meet the GHG emissions reduction targets under the Paris Agreement. That is why we have promoted this initiative, with support from the Euroclima+ program in Chile, which we hope will contribute to the fulfillment of Chile's Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs)."

The Minister of Transport, Juan Carlos Muñoz, added: "This project is extremely important for our country and in this sense, the collaboration with different organizations, such as the European Union and GiZ, has been key. Currently, we continue to work with the EU on the implementation of this strategy through a study that is under development and seeks to design lines of financing for projects to redistribute space and discourage the use of automobiles. The sustainability agenda is a State task in which we have taken the lead and we intend to give it greater impetus".

Urban mobility is one of the main responsible for the country's greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions (GHG), with 23% of CO2 emissions in 2018. According to international agreements, Chile committed to reaching its maximum annual emissions by 2025. That means that Chile must strive to reduce its annual pollution by 24% compared to what was emitted in 2018.