Transport can help propel world to greener future: UN

By Risa Maeda

TOKYO (Reuters) - Shipping, airlines and road transport need to clean up their emissions and help drive governments towards policies to fight global warming, a top U.N. official said on Thursday.

The transport sector accounts for more than 20 percent of mankind's carbon dioxide emissions, and further growth is likely given rising demand for cars, goods and travel in developing countries.

Transport will also be a key part of a broader U.N. climate pact about 190 nations will try to agree on at the end of the year during talks on a successor to the Kyoto Protocol.

"There can be no doubt that the transport sector will come under intense pressure and needs to dramatically change direction," Yvo de Boer, head of the U.N. Climate Change Secretariat, told a global transport ministerial gathering in Tokyo on Thursday.

"Transport industries should no longer find themselves in the position of beggars for billions of taxpayer's dollars. Instead, they need to come back into pole position of drivers of economic growth, through the production of smart and efficient cars, trains, ships and planes," he said in a speech.

"The transport sector is at a juncture," he said, adding the key question was how the industry could influence regulators to back greener policies "rather than digging itself deeper into a hole" as airlines, shippers and car makers battled shrinking revenue because of the global financial crisis.

Transport ministers from 21 major countries are holding a three-day meeting in Tokyo until Friday. They account to about 70 percent of CO2 emissions of the global transport sector, according to Japan's transport ministry.

China, believed to be now the world's top greenhouse gas polluter, pulled out at the last minute, insisting rich nations lead the charge in emissions cuts, a Japanese transport ministry official told reporters.