The voice of the global railway community and cooperation with the United Nations
Cooperation with the United Nations
UIC is an internationally-accredited Non-Governmental Organisation in consultative relations with the United Nations since 1950 and was elevated to a special status in 2015, cooperating more actively with UNSG since that date, and participating annually in the Conference Of Parties (COP) organised by UNFCCC and many other intermediate events. Through events and communications, UIC acts as the voice of the global railway community, promoting the role of rail in sustainable mobility and as a climate change solution.
UIC actively champions rail as part of global initiatives promoting sustainable mobility including SUM4ALL (World Bank Initiative), sits of the board of Sustainable, Low Carbon Transport initiative (SLoCaT) and the Transport Decarbonisation Alliance (TDA).
UIC brings the rail content for publications on sustainable mobility driven by the UNSG (“Mobilizing Sustainable Transport for Development” – 2016), the World Bank (“Global Mobility Report” 2017; “Global Roadmap of Actions” – 2019) and by SLoCaT (“TCC-GSR” – 2018). UIC is a founding member of the UNFCCC Marrakesh Partnership, supporting implementation of the Paris Agreement by enabling collaboration between railway actors and governments and leads the rail content for the Climate action pathway for transport.
Chaired by Patrice Couchard of SNCB, The Global Railways Sustainability Taskforce, is a globally representative panel made up from UIC members and industry technical experts. The Taskforce creates and agrees our global advocacy key messages. For 2021 creating the 2030 vision for Rail ‘Design a better Future’.
Since 2014, UIC launched the “Low Carbon Rail Transport Challenge” with commitments on energy efficiency, CO2 emissions and modal shift targets, in order to position rail as a solution to climate change and frame discussions with the United Nations and national governments. The challenge was designed to illustrate how increased investment and modal shift to rail can help transport reach net zero greenhouse gas emissions before 2050.
For further information about the UIC Climate pledge, please visit:
UIC at Conference of Parties (COP)
Last conference: COP26 - Glasgow UIC participated in the 26th Conference of Parties in Glasgow, the UK. The Conference of Parties took place under the Presidency of the Government of the UK from 31 October - 12 November 2021.For further information, please visit:
Publications
