This article is part of a Women and Leadership special report highlighting the work by women around the world addressing climate change.kkjili
Claudia Adriazola-Steil became aware of the importance of mass transportation as a young woman growing up in Peru. Now 51, she is deputy director of the Global Urban Mobility program and director of the Health & Road Safety program at the World Resources Institute Ross Center for Sustainable Cities in Washington, D.C. Her work focuses on the intersection of sustainable mobility, climate change and public health. She was interviewed by phone. The conversation has been edited and condensed.
Why a career in transport?
I was working as a lawyer when a former professor said the Cabinet of Ministers was looking for young people who were well prepared to be in the government. Working for Peru’s Ministry of Transport was my first contact with the challenges transport brings to people. In Peru, public transportation is used widely, and yet the quality is very poor. Streets are very disorganized, chaotic. It is dangerous for pedestrians.
What are the Institute’s goals?
It’s a think tank; it’s also a “do” tank. We have three main areas of focus: people, nature and climate. We want to support the reduction of carbon emissions around the world in every way possible, to make this world a world that is livable and where everybody can thrive, respecting the resources that we have. We do it through research, action and by working in partnerships and coalitions.
I work to support cities around the world — mainly in Asia, Latin America and Africa — to have more sustainable transport systems that are not only low in carbon emissions, but also that are safe, equitable, and help people access jobs and services. We look at the economic impact of transport. We’ve done research that shows how only about 33 percent of the people in Mexico City have a commute of one hour to work, while most are so far that their commutes stretch from over one to three hours.
What’s the link between safety and climate?
We have to make the transport system safe to make it clean. Transport is one of these hard-to-abate sectors that keeps growing carbon emissions instead of lowering them, and accounts for nearly 25 percent of global CO2 emissions. Targeting transport is essential if we want to decarbonize. One way to do it is electrification. We also have to increase mass transportation, walking and cycling.
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