Transport Decarbonisation Index (TDI) Benchmarking Brief

A systemic transformation in transport and mobility is urgently needed, particularly in low- and middleincome countries (LMICs) across Sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia, which are marked by rapidly growing populations, spiralling urbanisation, rising private motorisation and an underperforming transport sector. The growth in greenhouse gas emissions stemming from the surface transport of LMICs in these regions is expected to outpace the global average in the coming decades, underscoring the need for urgent action to keep global warming within the 1.5 degrees Celsius target of the Paris Agreement on climate change.

Adding to the challenge, transport decarbonisation efforts would have to be pursued in parallel with initiatives to enhance transport access and connectivity, which are central to advancing socio-economic development in these regions. However, many LMICs lack the capacity, data and policy frameworks necessary to implement sustainable transport solutions and to attract international climate finance.

Against this backdrop, the Transport Decarbonisation Index (TDI), through its diagnostic toolkit, aims to support policy makers in LMICs in their efforts to reduce emissions from surface transport while advancing broader sustainable development objectives. By delivering a data-driven overview of where countries stand in their journey towards net zero greenhouse gas emissions and complementing it with tailored, yet non-prescriptive policy advice, the TDI seeks to enable evidence-based, time-sensitive and targeted decisions on surface transport decarbonisation. More than a diagnostic tool, the TDI seeks to act as a catalyst for knowledge sharing, partnership building, and collaborative learning, supporting LMICs in aligning national policies with global climate and sustainability agendas.

The application and benchmarking of the TDI has been carried out across 12 pilot countries: Ethiopia, Ghana, Kenya, Nigeria, Rwanda, South Africa, and Zimbabwe in Africa, as well as Bangladesh, India, Nepal, Pakistan and Sri Lanka in South Asia. The piloting process has been an instrumental part of the TDI project because it: 1) helped to finetune and finalise the TDI methodology, 2) shed light on the realities of transport data in LMICs across the two regions, and 3) underscored the challenges of developing a set of indicators that capture the complexity of transport systems. This brief on the TDI Benchmarking Report provides an overview of the main results and lessons learned from the index’s piloting.