Sustainable mobility as a driver of climate action
A strong recurring message throughout the webinar was that urban mobility is about much more than transport. Presenting results from the SUMPs for BSR project, Marcin Wołek (University of Gdańsk) and Maarja Käger (Institute of Baltic Studies) highlighted how mobility decisions influence land use, economic development, social inclusion and environmental outcomes.
While many cities have significantly reduced emissions in sectors such as energy and heating, urban mobility often remains the final bottleneck on the path to climate neutrality.
Experiences from six pilot cities, ranging in size from 15 000 to 245 000 residents, demonstrated the value of practical mobility measures, including temporary cycle lanes, bike and scooter parking, mobility hubs and digital campaigns. The speakers stressed that mobility planning must be integrated with land-use, environmental and social planning across the entire functional urban area. They also presented the Indicator Selector Tool, which contains around 200 indicators to support monitoring and evaluation.
The City of Gdańsk offered a concrete example of how long-term mobility planning can translate into action. Magdalena Szymańska (Active Mobility Unit of the Gdańsk Public Transport Authority) presented the city’s updated Sustainable Urban Mobility Plan, building on achievements from the previous plan, including ground-level pedestrian crossings replacing underpasses, tram connections to suburban areas combined with cycle paths, a low-emission bus fleet and behaviour-change campaigns such as Cycling May and Bike to Work. One of the examples of the campaigns’ impacts included how moving the Bike to Work campaign to the autumn months increased cycling traffic during that period by 50% compared with the previous year.
Connecting mobility planning and climate budgeting for climate neutrality
Mobility measures become even more effective when linked to broader climate planning and budgeting processes. In the City of Tampere, transport has been the city’s largest source of emissions since 2024. Hanna Meriläinen (Climate and Environmental Policy Unit of the city) presented how, as part of its pathway towards reducing emissions by 80% from 1990 levels by 2030, the city continues to invest in sustainable transport infrastructure, including a third tram line due to open in 2028. More than a quarter of residents already live within 500 metres of a tram stop. Tampere has already achieved around a 55% reduction in emissions and expects to reach approximately 75% by 2030 with current measures.
The city’s climate budget combines an emissions budget with a financial plan and, through the Climate-4-CAST project, has evolved from a monitoring and reporting tool into a planning and prioritisation tool. This helps decision-makers assess which climate measures should be prioritised and whether available funding is sufficient. For the 2027 budget cycle, nine measures were proposed for additional funding, including four transport-related actions such as marketing sustainable mobility, improving winter maintenance of walking and cycling routes, preventing traffic congestion and supporting sustainable transport planning.
A complementary perspective came from Östersund Municipality, where Rasmus Vermum (Public Work Department) presented two scenarios for closing the city’s transport emission gap and meeting its greenhouse gas budget by 2040. One focuses on technological change through large-scale vehicle electrification, while the other relies on behavioural changes that significantly reduce vehicle use. Rather than presenting them as competing options, Östersund views the scenarios as complementary approaches that can be combined in different proportions. By linking emissions targets to investment requirements, mobility choices and potential societal benefits, the municipality is translating climate goals into practical choices that are easier for decision-makers and residents to understand.