E-bikes present new safety concerns. They are faster and therefore crashes are more prone to being serious compared with a conventional bike. And they are creating higher volumes of people traveling at a wider range of speeds on multiuse paths (MUPs).

They also let more people take short trips without a car. That reduces exposure to high-speed traffic and lowers crash energy on our streets. And they expand access for older adults, teens, and people facing long distances or hills.

So, e-bike safety is about e-bikes, but it’s also about how e-bikes can contribute to a safe and healthy transportation system overall. In sum, it’s about how we manage the mix of speeds and the quality of the places where we ride and walk.

Key issues to watch

Speed and mass. E-bikes are heavier and can be faster than acoustic bikes. Higher speeds raise stopping distance and crash severity. Managing speed where people mix is essential.

Street mixing with fast traffic. Many crashes involve overtaking by cars on streets without protection. Network gaps push riders to choose between stressful traffic or crowded paths.

Shared-path conflicts. Multiuse paths now host walkers, joggers, kids on scooters, and e-bikes at different speeds. Passing and speed differentials create risk, especially at blind corners and path intersections.

Youth riders. Teens are using e-bikes for school and jobs. Skills, judgment, and device choice vary. Parents and schools need clear guidance and training resources.

Battery and charging safety. Poor quality or damaged lithium-ion batteries can overheat or catch fire. Certified equipment, proper chargers, and safe charging locations reduce risk.

Device classification confusion. Class 1 and 2 e-bikes behave like bicycles in most settings. Higher-powered e-mopeds and DIY builds ride faster and weigh more. Lack of clarity leads to misuse of paths and sidewalks.

Visibility. Night riding without lights, poor lane positioning, and quiet approach can surprise others. Bells, lights, and predictable lines help.

Maintenance and equipment. Worn brakes, underinflated tires, and loose racks or child seats degrade handling. Regular checks matter more at higher speeds and loads.

Behavior and etiquette. Speeding near pedestrians, buzzing passes, wrong-way riding, distraction, and impairment drive a share of serious conflicts.

Where consensus is emerging

Design the street for safety. Lower default urban speeds to 20 to 25 miles per hour and accelerate the development of connected protected bike networks on higher speed or high volume streets.

Manage speed where people mix. Set and communicate clear expectations on multiuse paths. Slow zones near playgrounds and waterfronts, posted limits, and design cues that nudge lower speeds are gaining support.

Prioritize behavior over blanket bans. Target dangerous operation and conflict points rather than banning entire device categories. Focus rules on speed, yielding, and passing.

Clarify classes and align access. Treat Class 1 and 2 like bicycles in most places. Keep Class 3 to streets and protected lanes, not crowded trails. Require registration and equipment for e-mopeds where applicable.

Raise the bar on battery safety. Require or prefer UL certified systems for bikes, batteries, and chargers. Promote safe charging rooms, outdoor charging at hubs, and trade-ins for unsafe batteries.

Educate riders and families. Scalable training through schools, retailers, and community groups is effective. On-bike skills, route choice, and maintenance basics reduce risk fast.

Support delivery riders. Provide charging, secure parking, restrooms, and safe curb access. Partner with platforms and battery providers to phase in certified swappable batteries.

Use data to manage the mode. Track e-bike exposure, not only crashes. Distinguish device types in reports, capture near misses, and evaluate per-mile risk. Use this to target investments.

An agenda for communities

#1. Set safe speeds on local streets. Adopt 20 to 25 mile per hour defaults and use traffic calming so e-bikes and acoustic bikes can mix comfortably with cars.

#2. Build a connected protected network. Deliver continuous protected lanes on arterials and through tricky junctions. Fill the worst gaps first and connect homes to schools, jobs, and transit.

#3. Enhance traffic control at conflict points. Focus on intersections and places of low visibility with paint or other features, speed limit signs, mirrors where appropriate, and designs that slow users before conflict zones. Establish clear rules for paths and parks, with simple speed guidance, require yielding to pedestrians, and mark centerlines, slow zones, and blind corners. Back it with education before citations.

#4. Clarify device classes and access. Align local codes with Class 1, 2, and 3. Keep Class 3 off crowded trails. Define e-mopeds and require required equipment and registration where state law applies.

#5. Focus enforcement on the top risks. Target speeding, wrong-way riding, sidewalk riding in busy districts, and failure to yield at crosswalks. Use warnings and diversion to education before fines.

#6. Work with parents and school districts to help families make informed choices about purchasing and travel behavior. Help to differentiate between pedal-assist e-bikes and more powerful full electric motorcycles, often called e-motos. Provide onboarding experiences and guidance that support legal and safe operation that does not harm others.

#7. Launch rider education at scale. Partner with schools, libraries, and retailers for short hands-on classes. Include braking drills, lane positioning, night riding, and cargo or child-carrying tips.

#8. Make e-bike growth and success a goal of transportation planning. Explicitly measure and manage towards growth of the mode. Track access, safety outcomes, trip replacement of car miles, equity of who benefits, and total cost of travel, then manage toward targets.

#9. Measure and publish progress. Add device type fields to crash forms. Deploy counters that distinguish bikes and scooters. Report injuries per million trips and per million miles. Track car trip replacement and equity of access.

E-bike safety is about the promise that e-bikes can make us safer and healthier, especially by giving reedom to people experiencing financial stress and to those who are trapped without an alternative to driving.

E-bikes also offer a serious potential to replace cars and step down the high levels of kinetic energy and problematic driving, including distracted driving, that make our streets dangerous in the first place.

And so the ebike-safety opportunity is an integrated agenda that addresses issues specific to the technology while harnessing it to life all boats.

Today is the World Day of Remembrance for Road Traffic Victims, the third Sunday in November. It is a day to honor those lost and those living with life-changing injuries.

It is also a day to be clear about what it takes to stop preventable tragedies from taking place.

The losses are immense, with more than 40,000 people killed each year in the US, and an order of magnitude of people experiencing reported life-changing traffic injuries.

These experience are also uneven, varying from country to country and even from one city to the next.

First truth: Steady human transportation patterns are not accidents.

Severe crashes can feel random, but they are not. Their patterns come from choices we have made about how we design, manage, and enforce our transportation system.

Whatever state, county, or town you live in, you can bet on two things. First, there is a somewhat consistent level and trend in traffic fatalities from year to year. And two, there’s at least an order-of-magnitude jump in cases of life-changing injuries. You can take what happened this year and the fee before it, and pretty well predict what’s going to happen next year.

That yearly statistic is no accident. It’s a designed tolerance, and it is avoidable.

One proof is the big differences between places similar places a short distance apart. For example, Boulder, Colorado has about 3 fatal crashes per 100,000 residents while Thornton and Lakewood both exceed 12.

Whatever the local rate, until deaths and serious injuries are zero, the dominant cause is a system that allows the danger to persist.

Second truth: The dangers and solutions are known.

It is not a mystery what’s going on. Indeed, serious crashes are easy to research, and we know from study after study that they result from specific conditions. Some of those conditions:

• Kinetic energy. Speed and mass drive harm. When speeds fall, survival rises. When vehicles are smaller and streets self-enforce safe speeds, mistakes are less deadly. That means lower default limits that are backed by design, protected space for people walking and biking, safer crossings, better lighting, and safer fleets and vehicle fronts in cities.
• Consequences. People will make mistakes. Streets should forgive human error. Tighter corners, protected intersections, daylighted corners, roundabouts where they fit, and clear, visible crosswalks reduce the chance that a mistake becomes a fatal event.
• Compulsion. Many people have no real choice but to drive for every trip, even short ones, regardless of age, ability, or mental awareness. That raises exposure and stress, especially at odd hours when alternatives are fewer and conditions are even less forgiving. Frequent and reliable transit, safe routes to school and senior destinations, protected micromobility networks, zoning that lets homes sit near daily needs, and smarter curb management give people real options.
• Centrality. Policy, culture, and enforcement tend to center drivers and larger vehicles while shifting costs to everyone else. Safe System policies that put human life first, clear annual safety targets tied to funding and leadership performance, guardrails on vehicle size and weight in cities, equitable automated speed enforcement, and strong public and private fleet standards rebalance the system.

These dynamics are not about guesses. Cities that act to rebuild intersections, upgrade lighting, and mange speeds are bringing real reductions in deaths and serious injuries.

For advocates of safe streets, two questions come next. What commitments will make the most difference going forward? And how do we minimize preventable tragedy between now and full buildout by compressing timelines to delivery?

Third truth: Making big changes depends on being realistic and respectful about concerns, while doing the hard work of selling a better vision.

Safe streets is a good idea. It saves lives and makes daily life calmer, healthier, and more affordable.

It also brings change. Construction disrupts routines. New patterns take time to learn. Different concepts can conflict with long-held beliefs about how streets are supposed to work and what good transportation governance looks like.

However good staff are at the local public agency responsible for transportation, they are probably limited by elected officials. And those officials are typically not technical experts, so they listen to what they hear from community members.

In sum, safe streets is an excellent policy idea, but upstream from policy is politics, and culture is upstream from that.

So, to have more productive conversations with the community—and electeds—now and over time, use these methods:

Share the vision. What does the destination look like? What’s on the table, in vivid, compelling description? Why is life better for more people, including drivers?

Next, think about setting expectations for any kind of a remodel. You want to do it, but it’s still going to cause some uncertainty, disruption, and a pain. And it’s clearly obvious to anyone observing that you have changes planned that are going to affect their lives. So, say so upfront, listen, and build the list together.

From there, talk about what’s happening as an investment. There are pluses and minuses and we can see how they net out. And indeed, the near term is going to involve some costs, and we will do our best to mitigate them. But we are doing it so we can have something better.

You won’t win everyone. But it is a way to build important support—and minimize easy ways future electeds can reverse course—over time.

A call to action

Finally, the hard part: Commit to sharing these concepts with your local elected officials or agencies at least once per quarter in the year ahead. Pick a city, county, school district, MPO, or state DOT and rotate.

Using these themes as a guide, send a short letter or give two minutes of public comment. Alternatively, write an op-ed in your local paper or speak at a local community event.

If you are already doing this quarterly or more, thank you. Now bring a friend.

Battery-electric motors bring not only the power to cut carbon and mitigate spikes in fuel costs but also the literal horsepower to create a range of new classes of ultra-efficient small vehicles that can return large sums of money to people, unlock travel for people who are younger, older, and have special needs, and make towns quieter, calmer, and more joyful to be in.

High-quality affordable e-bikes, other micromobility devices, and ultra-efficient electric cars and vans with safe and comfortable conditions to use them could be outs to have–if we plan for them.

The opportunity for changemakers is to use the superior power of battery-electric motors to give people ultra-efficient, rightsized motor vehicles of all different kinds.

Resources

Perspectives on micromobility

The set of choices available for transportation—or more generally, “access to destinations” (or more generally still, “access to opportunities”)—is one of the most important determinants of our quality of life. It powerfully shapes our cost of living, the extent to which large numbers of people are able to satisfy their basic needs and reasonable standards of living, and the power of our local community,

Transportation choice is also a crucial determinant of climate outcomes. Transportation is one of the top main sources of greenhouse gas emissions (GHG) as well as one of the sources that has the most concerning trends. Furthermore it’s central to adapting to being resilient in the face of climate change.

And the state of transportation choices enables and is enabled by other economic systems that govern well-being and climate action like housing, energy, food, air quality, and the ability to secure valuable goods and services.

Some of the keys to creating good transportation choices:

1. Design for people

Think about and organize for transportation so that the programs and people involved with its planning, engineering, and operations are foremost responsible to solve human problems.

• Focus metrics on satisfying human needs, in particular, enabling people to reach destinations and opportunities in an economically-efficient way safely.
• Ensure people of all ages, abilities, and financial situations are able to effectively access destinations–and course-correct where that is currently not happening.
• Establish a great “fabric” for active transportation (walking, biking, and rolling in other ways) to provide good options for people to come together and communities to be cohesive, while elevating the need to make urban areas places that work well for people to be outside of cars.
• Highly value the experience of people in neighborhoods and communities that the transportation systems flow through, minimizing preventable stress, danger, noise, and other problems vehicle traffic can impose.

2. Multiple mobility solutions

Create an ecosystem that works for a diversity of travel modes and travel alternatives.

• Make communities conveniently and comfortably walkable, bikeable, and connected with excellent transit, both within themselves and to/from other places.
• Create the flexibility to satisfy people with different needs, including the people whose needs change expectedly and unexpectedly throughout the year, month, work, day, and life events.
• Coordinate systems so users can effectively link different modes on the same trips.
• Support alternatives to mobility like remote meetings/work and efficient deliveries.

3. Systemwide efficiency

Allocate investments, rights, privelages, and space to transportation systems that achieve the greatest outcomes for the resources used.

• Design communities to be space-efficient by reducing the distances between endpoints, especially housing and destinations, so people can live near where they need to go, comfortably travel by walking and biking, and access good social connections and desirable chance encounters.
• Build systems to enable high-efficiency electric vehicles like neighborhood electric vehicles and e-scooters.
• Dedicate systems and accountability to continuous improvement, with transparent reporting and planned responses to problem data (including people killed and seriously injureed in/around transportation systems) and the gap between key current states and targets.
• Meaningfully invest in structured continuous improvement, innovation, and technology advancement.

Electric bicycles (e-bikes) multiply humans’ ability to pedal and balance. If you’ve used one, you have experienced bionic power. In case you’ve haven’t, read on for an explainer.

In short, a powerful small electric motor delivers three basic enhancements. Then, at the hands (and feet) of a person, those enhancements make the bicycle—already one of the most efficient machines in the universe— easier to manage and more powerful.

Three Enhancements 

The e-bike adds battery-electric power assistance to the drivetrain of a conventional bicycle. This delivers three kinds of enhancements to a bicycle:

First, it increases the rider’s power output. A typical human pedaling with legs typically delivers 20-200 of watts to a bicycle. The low end is working gently on flat ground and the high side is pushing uphill.

A battery-electric system stacks 250-1000 watts on top of that, depending on the model and power selection. Electric assistance means more power going to the bike for a given amount of effort from the human.

Second, it delivers explosive starting power. In addition to general power assistance, electric motors can immediately put a bicycle into motion in nearly any condition (e.g., under load or on a hill) with little or no effort to the pedaler.

This capability is inherent to electric motors and popularly called “instant torque” with electric cars. On a bicycle, it provides explosive launching power that can completely absorb the difficulty and fatigue involved with starts, which can be the most physically-demanding aspect of using a bicycle for transportation.

Third, it creates the option of throttle-only power. Some e-bikes, specifically, Class 2 e-bikes, carry a handlegrip throttle that delivers exclusive power assistance–in other words, power from the motor alone without pedaling.

This feature is similar to the throttle on a motorcycle, but with a low top speed. For most e-bikes with throttle-only power, assistance will cease when the bike reaches 20 MPH. 

Superhuman Abilities

So now that we have a performance-enhanced bicycle, how does the extra oomph translate to the work of actually riding?

The answer is that in nearly every aspect requiring physical effort, the bike now gives its rider superpowers. 

The new abilities include:

Distance: On an e-bike, a rider can cover 2-3 times the distance using the same amount of physical effort. Mileage may vary depending on the terrain, rider, and other factors. But in general, whatever distance or radius the operator of a conventional bike considers a comfortable travel range, it is now significantly larger.

Hills: A rider can choose to erase the challenge of most hills, from making the climb of a slope previously thought unmanageable into something comfortable to eliminating the effort needed for one or more hills on a route altogether. While the rider is subject to the constraints of the maximum output of a particular motor and the level of battery charge, in practice they are unlimited by grades designed for motor vehicles and 80% of the trips drivers take in cars.

Load: A rider can carry a surprisingly large amount of cargo weight on board (e.g., a standard longtail cargo bike might support 400 lbs), towed in a trailer (additional 100 pounds or so), or both with essentially zero extra physical exertion. Such cargo can be nearly anything, from a keg of beer to a Christmas tree to multiple children or even adult passengers. By the same principle, the rider can eliminate the force of headwind.

Ease: Just as power assistance can allow a rider to “do more” with the bicycle, it can also let them do less. Meaning, a bicycle operator can cover the same distance or terrain they did previously on a pedal-only bike, but with less strain. Or more to the point, without sweating. For some riders, this can make riding a bicycle for transportation finally feel compatible with dressing up for work or commuting in hot summer months.

Swiftness: One of the subtly extraordinary benefits of “Instant torque” is the ability to comfortably maneuver environments that require athletic starts, such as a series of uphill stoplights, with almost no physical exertion. In areas with heavy vehicle traffic and frequent intersections, this power can make the bicycle, already almost impervious to congestion, significantly faster and more enjoyable than traveling by car.

Speed: Electric assistance can bring the top speed of a bike to double or more what an average person can comfortably travel pedaling on their own (i.e., 20 vs 10 MPH). This can translate to the ability–and confidence–to traverse high-stress corridors like narrow bridges where the rider has to mix with cars, or unprotected bike lanes on fast-moving roads, in which the rider feels it necessary to get in and out as quickly as possible.

Balance: With electric bicycles that have throttle assistance, (in other words, Class 2 e-bikes), a rider has new capabilities to safely navigate hazardous conditions such as icy spots by being able to take their feet off the pedals and hold them out for balance while continuing to propel the bike forward.

Together, these abilities transform the conventional pedal-only bicycle into something categorically easier to manage and more powerful. 

On March 20, 2023, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) provided a major update on the state of climate science and ways forward in its synthesis of the Sixth Assessment Report (AR6).

Here’s what the world’s top authority on climate says about climate action and transportation:

#1. Climate change is an unfolding catastrophe.¹ It multiplies the most problematic existing societal challenges and it exacerbates inequalities. Pretty much no one is left unscathed.

#2. We can head off continued warming and prepare for the unavoidable by making major coordinated commitments–which is manageable.²

#3. In fact, climate action is an opportunity to create abundance.³ The solutions called for are largely centered in creating more inclusive, affordable, healthy, and joyous communities that make people better off. Sustainable and equitable development worth doing even without the benefits of decarbonization. 

#4. Rising to the challenge means rapid, broad, and deep decarbonization of our energy supply plus five principal “demand-side” areas: Food, buildings, industry, electrification, and land transportation.⁴ Emissions in all areas need to rapidly peak, decline, and move to nearly zero by 2050-2070.

#5. Decarbonizing transportation requires several transformations:

• Energy-Efficient Mobility Systems:⁵ Improving per-passenger energy productivity through development of systems to prioritize the widespread use of transit and other shared vehicles, vehicles right-sized for their purpose, and active transportation (e.g. bicycling and walking), meanwhile decreasing the distance between where people and things need to travel. Methods include safe streets for people outside of vehicles, more advanced public and community-based shared transportation, redesign of transportation for accessibility rather than car flow, inclusive housing, and inclusive use of public spaces. 

• Resource-Efficient Electrification:⁶ Electrifying nearly every vehicle with wheels and a motor, while stewarding resources to create the most decarbonization for the materials employed. Methods include switching internal combustion engines with electric powertrains of existing vehicles in every class (e.g. cars, buses, and trucks), using the superior technology of battery-electric systems to advance new classes of highly-efficient small vehicles in urban areas (e.g. scooters and neighborhood electric vehicles), and creating new capabilities for active transportation (e.g. e-bikes). 
• Compact Land Use: Dense infill mixed-use middle housing that lets people live near where they need to go). This strategy reduces fuel use, enables shifts to s’more energy-efficient modes, and enables day-to-day living is overall more resource-efficient and has a lighter climate impact.
• Rigorous Demand Management:⁷ Creating economic incentives to reward climate-compatible travel and contain the impact of vehicles and behaviors that are in conflict with decarbonization. Methods include programs of incentives for users making everyday travel choices and capital purchases (e.g. expanded use of transportation demand management or “TDM” initiatives), structural reforms (e.g. reorganizing subsidies to move beyond car-centric planning to interoperable multimodal systems, as well as ensuring public agencies have sufficient capacity and resources to conduct such work), and new creativity in public engagement (e.g., entrepreneurship to enhance user experiences, communication, and education).

#6. Everyone has a job to do.⁸ Climate action around transportation requires comprehensive support for activities as varied as public policy design, advocacy, organizing, technology deployment, education, applied research, and more. Those who have influence over urban areas and financial investments taking place are especially important. Leadership is contagious.

#7. Everything we can still do matters.⁹ Each increment of warming avoided can make an enormous difference.

1  From the IPCC’s published Headline Statements (Headlines), Summary for Policymakers (SPM), and Longer Report (LR). As of March 22, the full volume has not yet been published. Additional detail is available in the three reports the synthesis is based on, especially the 2022 report on Mitigation.

2  Climate change is a threat to human well-being and planetary health. (Headlines C.1). Climate change has reduced food security and affected water security, hindering efforts to meet Sustainable Development Goals (SPM A.2.4). Continued emissions will further affect all major climate system components, and many changes will be irreversible on centennial to millennial time scales and become larger with increasing global warming. Without urgent, effective, and equitable mitigation and adaptation actions, climate change increasingly threatens ecosystems, biodiversity, and the livelihoods, health and wellbeing of current and future generations. (C.1.3)

3 There is a rapidly closing window of opportunity to secure a liveable and sustainable future for all. (Headlines C.1) All global modelled pathways that limit warming to 1.5°C (>50%) with no or limited overshoot, and those that limit warming to 2°C (>67%), involve rapid and deep and, in most cases, immediate greenhouse gas emissions reductions in all sectors this decade. (SPM B.6). Low-cost decarbonization opportunities abound. (SPM Figure SPM.7.a)

4  Negative decarbonization opportunities abound. (SPM Figure SPM.7.a). Deep, rapid and sustained mitigation and accelerated implementation of adaptation actions in this decade would reduce projected losses and damages for humans and ecosystems (very high confidence), and deliver many co-benefits, especially for air quality and health (C.2) Mitigation options often have synergies with other aspects of sustainable development, but some options can also have trade-offs. There are potential synergies between sustainable development and, for instance, energy efficiency and renewable energy. Similarly, depending on the context, biological CDR methods like reforestation, improved forest management, soil carbon sequestration, peatland restoration and coastal blue carbon management can enhance biodiversity and ecosystem functions, employment and local livelihoods. However, afforestation or production of biomass crops can have adverse socio-economic and environmental impacts, including on biodiversity, food and water security, local livelihoods and the rights of Indigenous Peoples, especially if implemented at large scales and where land tenure is insecure. Modeled pathways that assume using resources more efficiently or that shift global development towards sustainability include fewer challenges, such as less dependence on CDR and pressure on land and biodiversity (B.6.4)

5  Rapid and far-reaching transitions across all sectors and systems are necessary to achieve deep and sustained emissions reductions and secure a liveable and sustainable future for all. (Headlines C.3) All global modeled pathways that limit warming to 1.5°C (>50%) with no or limited overshoot, and those that limit warming to 2°C (>67%), involve rapid and deep and, in most cases, immediate greenhouse gas emissions reductions in all sectors this decade. Global net zero CO2 emissions are reached for these pathway categories, in the early 2050s and around the early 2070s, respectively. (Headlines B.6)

6 SPM Figure SPM.7.a

7 Urban systems are critical for achieving deep emissions reductions and advancing climate resilient development. Key adaptation and mitigation elements in cities include considering climate change impacts and risks (e.g. through climate services) in the design and planning of settlements and infrastructure; land use planning to achieve compact urban form, co-location of jobs and housing; supporting public transport and active mobility. (SPM C.3.4) Public transportation with bikes and rightsizing motor vehicles are among top 20 key modeled areas of mitigation, and the 5th (nearly tied with 4th) and 3rd-highest sources of mitigation that are cost-negative. (SPM Figure SPM.7.b) Urban systems are critical for achieving deep emissions reductions and advancing climate resilient development, particularly when this involves integrated planning that incorporates physical, natural and social infrastructure (high confidence). Deep emissions reductions and integrated adaptation actions are advanced by: integrated, inclusive land use planning and decision-making; compact urban form by co-locating jobs and housing; reducing or changing urban energy and material consumption; electrification in combination with low emissions sources; improved water and waste management infrastructure; and enhancing carbon uptake and storage in the urban environment (LR 4.5.3)

8 Electric vehicles powered by low-GHG emissions electricity have large potential to reduce land-based transport…The environmental footprint of battery production and growing concerns about critical minerals can be addressed by material and supply diversification strategies, energy and material efficiency improvements, and circular material flows. (SPM C.3.3)

9 Reducing industry GHG emissions entails coordinated action throughout value chains to promote all mitigation options, including demand management, energy and materials efficiency, circular material flows, as well as abatement technologies and transformational changes in production processes. (SPM C.3.3) The systemic change required to achieve rapid and deep emissions reductions and transformative adaptation to climate change is unprecedented in terms of scale, but not necessarily in terms of speed. Systems transitions include: deployment of low- or zero-emission technologies; reducing and changing demand through infrastructure design and access, socio-cultural and behavioral changes, and increased technological efficiency and adoption; social protection, climate services or other services; and protecting and restoring ecosystems. Feasible, effective, and low-cost options for mitigation and adaptation are already available. (SPM C.3.1) Electrification load brings significant new impacts that need to be reduced (SPM Figure SPM.7.b) Transport-related GHG emissions can be reduced by demand-side options and low-GHG emissions technologies. Changes in urban form, reallocation of street space for cycling and walking, digitalisation (e.g., teleworking) and programs that encourage changes in consumer behavior (e.g. transport, pricing) can reduce demand for transport services and support the shift to more energy efficient transport modes. (LR 4.5.3) Approaches that align goals and actions across sectors provide opportunities for multiple and large-scale benefits and avoided damages in the near-term. Such measures can also achieve greater benefits through cascading effects across sectors (medium confidence). For example, the feasibility of using land for both agriculture and centralized solar production can increase when such options are combined (high confidence). Similarly, integrated transport and energy infrastructure planning and operations can together reduce the environmental, social, and economic impacts of decarbonizing the transport and energy sectors (high confidence). (4.9) 

10 Urban systems are critical for achieving deep emissions reductions and advancing climate resilient development.  SPM (C.3.4) Finance, technology and international cooperation are critical enablers for accelerated climate action. (SPM C.7) 

11  There are gaps between projected emissions from implemented policies and those from NDCs and finance flows fall short of the levels needed to meet climate goals across all sectors and regions. (Headlines A.4). Every increment of global warming will intensify multiple and concurrent hazards. (Headlines B.1)

12  Climate change is a threat to human well-being and planetary health. There is a rapidly closing window of opportunity to secure a liveable and sustainable future for all. Climate resilient development integrates adaptation and mitigation to advance sustainable development for all, and is enabled by increased international cooperation including improved access to adequate financial resources, particularly for vulnerable regions, sectors and groups, and inclusive governance and coordinated policies. The choices and actions implemented in this decade will have impacts now and for thousands of years (SMP C.1). Delayed mitigation and adaptation action would lock-in high-emissions infrastructure, raise risks of stranded assets and cost-escalation, reduce feasibility, and increase losses and damages (high confidence). Near-term actions involve high up-front investments and potentially disruptive changes that can be lessened by a range of enabling policies. (C.2)