As the governing body for world motor sport and the federation of the world’s leading motoring organisations, the FIA is responsible for representing more than 100 million motorists worldwide. Over recent years, this responsibility has been focused through campaigns on road safety and the environment.

The FIA and its member clubs have played a key role in supporting the Make Roads Safe campaign, which is calling for a global programme to reduce the rapidly growing death toll on our roads.

FIA clubs helped to gather one million signatures in support of the proposal to create the first-ever UN road safety summit and these were submitted to UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon in New York. The United Nations supported the call and the first ever global Ministerial summit on road safety will be held in Russia in 2009.

The Make Roads Safe campaign will continue to promote its agenda for action in the run-up to the UN Ministerial conference. This includes calling on the international community to fund, at minimum, a 10-year, $300 million action plan to increase road safety capacity in middle and low income countries, and to ensure that 10 per cent of road infrastructure budgets funded by international donors should be earmarked for safety.

The FIA’s campaign work also focuses on environmental issues. That focus was crystallised by the FIA’s declaration on air quality, climate change, and automotive fuels economy, a dossier which was launched at the FIA General Assembly in October 2007. This declaration calls for action by automotive stakeholders, policy makers and consumers to act to reduce the impact of motoring on the environment. 

It also calls on the United Nations to adopt the first-ever worldwide target for CO2 emissions in passenger cars. The FIA and its member clubs worldwide unanimously agreed to set a global CO2 emissions benchmark of 140g/km for passenger cars as part of a new international framework for greener motoring.

This declaration formed the basis of the FIA’s Make Cars Green campaign. The international campaign aims to reduce the impact of motoring on the environment in a number of ways, such as through the promotion of more environmentally friendly and fuel efficient driver behaviour.

The FIA has utilised its links with sport to help promote these road safety and environmental messages. Seven-time FIA Formula One world champion Michael Schumacher has been a major advocate for the Make Roads Safe campaign and took a leading role in the FIA Foundation’s Rally for Safer Roads event in April 2007.

The Make Cars Green campaign received worldwide exposure when drivers from the FIA Formula One World Championship participated in a group photo to endorse the campaign during the first Grand Prix of the season in Australia.

The FIA has also launched a number of campaigns in motor sport, such as the EveryRace campaign, which promotes the message that discrimination and prejudice can have no place in sport or society.

For further information:

www.makecarsgreen.com
www.makeroadssafe.org
www.everyrace.net