If you take a look at the different tools that cities can use to tackle the climate issue, you'll see it's a very long list. There are congestion charges, low-emission zones, parking policies, bicycle priority lanes. These are just a sample, but why aren't we using them?

Sometimes cities adopt ambitious mobility plans only to dismantle them when they lose enthusiasm. Where's the consistency? Long-term vision is essential, and constant restructuring of priorities is really a big problem for cities. We will all pay the price in the end.

Raising awareness is about constantly repeating the same message over and over again, and our message has not changed: the solutions for fighting climate catastrophe are already there. We are encouraging UITP members to see their local governments, because even though UITP's reputation has skyrocketed in recent years, a local metro operator can get an audience with a transport minister more easily than we can. What we can do is give our members what they need: facts, figures and arguments that they can use to approach their governments. We are doing this in our meetings with the United Nations and the European Union (EU), and in our coalitions with Slocat, a partnership of more than 80 organisations for sustainable low-carbon transport, the World Bank, the International Transport Workers Federation (ITF), UN Habitat, among others.

Last month at the Cooperation for Urban Mobility in the Developing World (Codatu) conference in Istanbul, I made a joke - and there is some element of truth in it - that a meeting like the COP21 conference in Paris in December should really take place in a city like New Delhi or Beijing on a day when the air quality index is 10 times above safe levels. When decision-makers are spluttering and coughing, pollution stops being an abstract concept and starts to feel more real.

Mr Jean Christophe Victor, founder of Lepac, a private, independent think-tank based in France specialising in international geopolitical analysis and foresight studies, came to give a talk at the UITP in February and he presented us with some alarming statistics, as well as a positive message for the future of cities. But despite his enthusiasm, the reality remains that car sales increase by 4% every year.

In the coming weeks we will be coming out with a position on the dramatic drop in the cost of oil. It's still under discussion, but I would like to address the possibility of using some of the savings from cheap oil to invest in alternative fuel development for mobility, or what about reducing subsidies and re-injecting savings into developing sustainable modes? As Transport for London's Peter Hendy said to me the other day, we have to be ready to make bold decisions. The mayor of London, Boris Johnson's project of putting bicycle lanes everywhere was really tough in a city as congested as London. But in the long run it's these types of decisions that will really make a difference.

The solutions are not rocket science; they just take courage. But sometimes this can be the most difficult part of all.