ME Cleaner Fuels & Vehicles for Clean Air Forum

The Middle East Cleaner Fuels & Vehicles for Clean Air Policy Forum will be held on 26-27 September 2010 at the Intercontinental City Stars Hotel, Cairo, Egypt. The Forum is within the mandate of the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) Partnership for Clean Fuels and Vehicles (PCFV). This Forum is supported by the League of Arab States (LAS), the Centre for Environment and Development for the Arab Region and Europe (CEDARE), the United Sates Environment Protection Agency (US EPA) and the Asian Clean Fuels Association (ACFA).

The Partnership for Clean Fuels and Vehicles (PCFV) is a global partnership, launched at the World Summit on Sustainable Development (WSSD) in Johannesburg in 2002, that aims to support developing countries in their efforts to improve fuel and vehicle technologies to reduce vehicular air pollution through the promotion of lead-free, low sulphur fuels and cleaner vehicle standards and technologies.

The Forum aims to identify actions leading to lower emissions and improved fuel economy and will focus on clean fuels -unleaded gasoline and low sulphur fuels-, the vehicle standards situation in the Middle East, North Africa and West Asia (MENAWA) countries and the next steps necessary to achieve implementation at the national level as well as regionally.

This Forum is a follow-up of both the ‘Policy Development Meeting for the Middle East, West Asia and North Africa on Clean Fuels and Vehicles’ held in Cairo, Egypt, in 2006 and the “Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) Policy Development Meeting on Clean Fuels and Vehicles” held in Manama, Bahrain on 12 – 13th March 2008. It aims to consolidate the recommendations made at these meetings into national level action plans for implementation of clean fuels and vehicles for sustainable air quality management within the region. The meeting is also a follow up to the Ministerial session of the League of Arab States (LAS) in Algiers in December 2006 that called for “the reduction of sulphur levels in vehicle fuels, concurrent with clean vehicles and clean vehicle technologies”.

The Forum will be attended by representatives of leading institutions from international organizations, private sector enterprises and governmental organizations. Participants are required to complete the Forum Registration Form and send it to the logistical coordinator, CEDARE, attention Ms. Terry Fahmy on pcfv@cedare.int or Tel: (202)-24513921/2/3/4 ext.: 626; fax: (202)-24513918.