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The President of the Spanish Government, Pedro Sánchez, has closed the conference in which business leaders, institutions, experts and academics have highlighted the urgency of promoting clean, inclusive, digital and connected mobility.
From 14 to 16 June at IFEMA MADRID, more than 300 leaders presented business and collaboration initiatives and assembled the new ecosystem of sustainable mobility.
Madrid, 16 June 2022 - The first edition of Global Mobility Call, the world congress on sustainable mobility organised by IFEMA MADRID and Smobhub, concluded today with a great boost for a more sustainable, efficient and inclusive mobility, and with the consolidation of the new ecosystem of new mobility’s institutional and business actors.
Global Mobility Call brought together more than 4,500 on-site attendees and 13,000 online attendees from 40 countries, with more than 1.3 million views of the live programme. In addition, 250 journalists have covered the more than 100 multi-sector dialogues, where over 300 panelists, representatives from public and private sectors, entrepreneurs, academics and experts have presented proposals, ideas, reports and reflections on the rapid processes of changes in mobility.
Among the main conclusions was the need to carry out national and international projects that promote digitalisation, decarbonisation, connectivity, intermodal and multimodal transport, industrial transformation, urban design, improvement of rural transport, funding and professional services.
The President of the Spanish Government, Pedro Sánchez, closed the Global Mobility Call by stating that this forum "is the best example of the capacity for resilience, ambition to transform, the essential collaboration between the public and private sectors, the strength of companies and of Spanish society as a whole. Both private and public sectors share a special ability to face difficulties and adapt to new scenarios".
He has thanked the Congress participants for “the enthusiam, proposals, and the debates and for supporting the mobility transformation that we need”. He has underlined that the uncertainties provocked by the war “should not delay” the sustainable mobility transformation.
In the closing event, the Minister of Transport, Mobility and Urban Agenda, Raquel Sánchez, said that with Global Mobility Call we aspire "to serve as a benchmark for this new mobility and inspire those who pursue similar objectives. At this congress, we have seen our approach strengthened and we have confirmed that our objectives are realistic. In a few years' time, we want our cities to have eliminated combustion vehicles from their vehicle fleet and we want rail to gain a significant market share".
In closing the event, the President of the Executive Committee of IFEMA MADRID, José Vicente de los Mozos, explained that these days at Global Mobility Call have shown "the inspiration and the keys to enter into business of enormous proportions, for which priority is to access recovery funds", while the event has generated "content and professional networking, which will translate into a real boost for sustainable mobility". De los Mozos has annoucend that the 2023 edition of Global Mobility Call will be open to the public.
"We have to process the vast content and contacts of highest interest which have been produced during these days. It will be our job to organise and make this important legacy available to the different sectors and the thousands of professionals who have participated in Global Mobility Call", he said.
Global Mobility Call has responded to the need to bring together all mobility actors at a time of profound transformation. The need to act on both climate and energy crises, seizing the opportunity provided by the EUR 800 billion NextGenerationEU European recovery funds, has made Global Mobility Call an unprecedented opportunity to shape the future of a decarbonised, safe, digitised mobility, which respects the planet and the people’s health, aligned with the Sustainable Development Goals, the Paris Agreement and the European Green Pact.
The event, which has had a great media resonance, with more than 7,000 impacts in media around the world in just three days, has served to promote European collaborative projects on sustainable mobility, such as PAsCAL, which aims to improve the understanding of the implications from introducing connected and autonomous vehicles (CAVs) in society. Gaia-X, a European private sector initiative for the creation of an open, federated and interoperable data infrastructure. WWF's vision to help foster One Planet Cities, cities that allow all people to thrive within the ecological limits of our one planet, the SMARTA project, Sustainable Interconnected Shared Mobility, with public transport in Europe's rural areas, the SENATOR platform aims to facilitate more efficient, sustainable and accessible logistics operations with an impact on city mobility, among others.
Among the panellists, Jeffrey Sachs, American economist and specialist in sustainable development, called for further digital development of mobility and insisted that this be approached as an integrated ecosystem of sectors, just as Global Mobility Call does. Clotilde Delbos, CEO of Mobilize, stressed the need to work towards providing users with mobility services tailored to their needs. Michio Kaku, physicist and futurist, predicted how the quantum physics of the future will generate computers that will connect to the brain, and the robotisation of the automotive industry. Adina Vălean, European Commissioner for Transport, highlighted the opportunity presented by the Next GenerationEU Funds to boost projects in many of Europe's mobility sectors. It was also stressed that it is important to make this coincide with the drive for energy transition, to make Europe less dependent on fossil fuels. Monica Araya, Climate Mobility Advisor and member of the ClimateWorks & Partners’ Steering Committee suggested incorporating into the sustainable mobility agenda the questions of generating employment, fostering talent and economic value, at a time when countries are trying to remain within supply chains, and society is very anxious about the climate crisis and the retraining of labour in many sectors. Urban planner and MIT professor Carlo Ratti called for reflection on deep structural changes in the mobility of people, jobs and products, at a time of disruption accelerated by the Covid crisis and war.
Global Mobility Call has been sponsored by the Ministry of Transport, Mobility and Urban Agenda of the Government of Spain, in collaboration with the Ministries of Ecological Transition and Demographic Challenge, and Industry, Trade and Tourism, as well as the Community of Madrid and the Madrid City Council. In addition, there were 150 participating entities, including 26 sponsors, companies and public entities, and 33 Spanish and 12 international sectoral associations.
About Global Mobility Call (GMC)
Organised by IFEMA MADRID and Smobhub, with the sponsorship and support of the Spanish Ministry of Transport, Mobility and Urban Agenda (Mitma), Global Mobility Call was created as a strategic event to position Spain as the international hub for sustainable mobility, in a decisive context of post-pandemic recovery and in an environment of business development and investment opportunities fostered by the Next Generation EU funds, the biggest stimulus ever seen in Europe, as well as the European Green Deal, the roadmap to make Europe the first carbon-neutral continent by 2050. With a global vision, GMC will bring together leaders from all involved sectors, to share their vision for the development of sustainable mobility policies and business initiatives at the Madrid Exhibition Centre from 14-16 June 2022.
The combined exhibition and congress format will feature the participation of large companies, corporations and multinationals, as well as the most prominent speakers and institutions around the thematic blocks of Tech, Data & Innovation; New Urban Planning; Economic Development & Regulation; Sustainable Transportation, and Future Society.
16 June 2022
