Nobel

• BHUBANESWAR, India, April 23, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- Renowned industrialist and philanthropist Ratan Tata, Chairman Emeritus of the Tata Group, was honored with the prestigious KISS Humanitarian Award 2021 on Monday.
• Ratan Tata, usually reticent about accepting accolades, agreed to accept this award following a personal request from Achyuta Samanta, recognizing the importance of the KISS humanitarian honour.
• The award was announced in 2021, but Tata was unable to receive the award then because of the COVID pandemic.
• Initiated in 2008 by Achyuta Samanta, the KISS Humanitarian Award is the highest honour of KIIT and KISS dedicated to recognizing individuals and organizations that embody the spirit of humanitarian work worldwide.

• While the Paris Agreement set a crucial global climate target, many governments continue to approve new coal, oil and gas projects.
• The UNEP Production Gap Report 2023 warned that fossil fuel extraction plans undermine the world's chances of meeting our global climate targets.
• According to the Banking on Climate Chaos report released in 2023, Since the Paris Agreement was signed, the world's banks have pumped $5.5 trillion into fossil fuels.
• "The Fossil Fuel Treaty is a binding agreement, signaling that businesses are ready and willing to make this commitment.

• SAN FRANCISCO and KYOTO, Japan, April 18, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- Shinobi Therapeutics, a biotechnology company developing a new class of immune evasive iPS cell therapies, today announced a partnership with Panasonic Holdings Corp and Kyoto University's Center for iPS Cell Research and Application (CiRA).
• Through this strategic collaboration, the organizations aim to engineer a novel manufacturing platform to produce iPS-T cell therapies more efficiently and at lower cost than is possible with currently available technology.
• "Advancements in iPS cell production and Shinobi's genetic modification of iPSCs for immune evasion have made regenerative T cell therapy increasingly feasible," said Shin Kaneko, Co-Founder at Shinobi.
• The newly announced partnership will leverage Panasonic's manufacturing expertise to develop a new method of producing iPS-T cell therapies in a closed-system process.

• New York City is poised to launch the first congestion pricing plan to reduce traffic in a major U.S. metropolitan area.
• Like many journeys in the Big Apple, this one has been punctuated by delays.
• Once the system starts up, however, it’s expected to significantly reduce gridlock in Manhattan and generate billions of dollars to improve public transit citywide.
• As an urban policy scholar, I’m looking forward to seeing New York’s plan go into effect.
• But given the heavy costs that traffic imposes on public health and productivity, I’m encouraged to see a major U.S. city finally test this approach.

Nudging drivers

• Congestion pricing is a response to externalities – costs or benefits that are generated by one party but incurred by another.
• Clogged city streets and air pollution are externalities created by urban car users, many of whom live outside the city.
• This approach is behind behavioral economics, the policy strategy of using “nudges” that preserve choice but encourage certain actions.

Public transit receives priority

• The New York plan was presented to the board of the Metropolitan Transit Authority in November 2023 after years of study and a detailed environmental impact assessment, required by federal law.
• It also would generate US$15 billion for capital improvements to the city’s public transit system, including making stations accessible for passengers with disabilities and buying new electric buses and commuter rail and subway cars.
• More than 75% of all trips into the central business district are made by public transit.

• Over several months of public hearings, the MTA heard both broad support for congestion pricing and thousands of requests for credits, discounts and exemptions, most of which were denied.
• The limited number of exemptions includes private commuter buses, school buses and city-owned vehicles, including emergency vehicles.
• New Jersey is suing the MTA, arguing among other things that the plan is unconstitutional because it burdens interstate commerce.

Starting the journey

• And how will commuters respond when they find that trains and subways initially are more crowded, before capital upgrades improve the system?
• But freedom for car users has imposed health and economic costs on millions of New Yorkers for many years.
• But if New York’s experiment succeeds, it could provide a model and valuable insights for other traffic-clogged U.S. cities.

John Rennie Short does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.