Ciudad Emergente’s speech at the UN-Habitat Scroll of Honour Award 2021 Ceremony, Yaoundé, Cameroon

Yaoundé, Cameroon 4th of October, 2021

On behalf of all the people of Ciudad Emergente, all my colleagues, I am deeply thankful to be with you today in Cameroon receiving the prestigious UN-Habitat Scroll of Honour Award, celebrating the World Habitat Day 2021 to accelerate climate action.

I am happy, but I’m also deeply concerned that our streets are dangerous places for people and for the planet. For people, because the number of deaths on the world’s roads remains unacceptably high. 

I will tell you a story. I survived a very bad car accident with one of my very best friends. This was 15 year ago. We were younger, we were crazier. Sadly, the accident went so bad that he ended up in a wheelchair for life. Luckily he is alive, but his life changed forever. My life changed too. 

Streets are places where people are killed everyday, 1.3 million people dying each year on our roads and more than 10 million people dying because of polluted air. The planet is dying because of our CO2 emissions and our decisions on how we move and commute every day. I am going to ask a brief question. How many of you came today walking to this venue? You can please raise your hand. How many of you rode a bicycle to come to this venue? How many of you came by public transportation? How many of you came by car?

It’s another kind of pandemic. Just go out and take a look. Streets in Cameroon are dangerous, but not only here, the rates of traffic deaths are highest in Africa and South-East Asia, and more than half of all road traffic deaths are among vulnerable road users; pedestrians, cyclists, and motorcyclists. 

Back in Chile, I ride my bicycle everyday to go to work but I know that many people, especially women, are afraid of doing it, because our streets are not safe.  

Jannette Sadik-Khan, the former New York City Commissioner of Transportation once said, “if you can change the streets of your city you can change the world”. That was a pretty powerful statement that inspired us to push this idea of “Shared Streets for Low Carbon Cities”. 

What if we imagine safer streets for people and the planet. But not only that, what if we just do it, and we do it now? So we did it. We created a project that transforms car-oriented streets into multi-use public spaces for cars and people, reducing CO2 emissions nine times and increasing the use of bicycles by more than five hundred percent, securing safe street conditions for all.

But we were not alone on this. We harnessed the power of international cooperation working with experts from the UK for the first implementation, helping us to believe in ourselves and empowering us to make ideas happen. 

Later on, these lessons we brought to Central America, now, it was us the ones who were empowering other organizations and local governments in Panamá and Honduras to change their realities. Indeed, today, at this very moment, while I am speaking, the local authorities in the City of Danlí, Honduras in Central America, are successfully consolidating the Shared Streets project we once did together as pilots.

My point is that, if we are going to find a solution to make Safer Streets and fight the Climate Crisis it will be through cooperation and learning and trusting from each other. We need to empower our own local solutions, believe in our human capital and work with it. 

Finally, I would like to give you a tip to make ideas happen. Use the power of pilots.Cities are home to some of the most innovative and inclusive actions to fight the climate crisis, and often these ideas are first tested through interactive pilot projects. 

For sure a small pilot project will not change the reality of the whole city, but it can switch people’s mindsets. The power of pilots is that they can inspire and engage local communities, and when successful can be upscaled within and beyond a city, serving as tangible urban actions for a carbon-free world. 

Claudio Orrego, Governor of the Metropolitan city of Santiago told us “start small, think big, and scale it up fast.” If you need some help, please let us know. Many thanks. Muchas gracias.

Javier Vergara Petrescu

Cofounder and Executive Director

Ciudad Emergente

More information:

Ceremony award at Yaoundé, Cameroon. Ciudad Emergente’s speech at minute 1:58:38
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c6IzdaCvofE

UN-Habitat official press release:
https://unhabitat.org/2021-un-habitat-scroll-of-honour-award-winners-announced