FRIEDRICHSHAFEN, Germany - Last Wednesday a for the global bike industry very important meeting took place at Eurobike. It was the first annual assembly meeting of the Global Alliance for EcoMobility. That meeting comes exactly one year after the first steps were set for the founding of this Alliance which also took place at Eurobike.
The Global Alliance for EcoMobility is founded in order to make politicians conscious about bikes and the fact that a wider usage of bicycles in cities will bring down CO2 emissions and with that is highly effective in the fight against climate change.
The meeting was attended by lots of associations like ECF, ETRA, ITDP, COLIPED and COLIBI and many more. In particular interesting was that a representative from the United Nations Environment Program (UNEP) travelled all the way to Friedrichshafen to attend this meeting.
United Nations Climate Conference
The delegates of the various associations discussed the activities of the Global Alliance for EcoMobility since its official founding which took place last December in Bali during the United Nations Climate Conference. At the 1st annual assembly meeting the strategy for the next 5 years was the main topic while also the work plan for the rest of 2008 and 2009 was discussed.
At the meeting Dr. David Hon, CEO of the Dahon Group (the company recently joined the Alliance), stressed the fact that funding through a wide participation from the bike industry is urgently needed in order to get effective advocacy activities going. Other delegates as well as secretary-general Konrad Otto-Zimmermann of the Global Alliance for EcoMobility agreed to the points made by Dr. Hon.
The work plan for 2008 and 2009 will include fund raising as well as getting a wider participation from the bike industry. At this moment, next to the bike industry associations COLIBI/COLIPED there are only a few individual companies listed as a member of the Alliance. These companies are: Accell Group, Giant, Trek and Shimano.
Caption: The delegates of the various associations discussed the activities of the Global Alliance for EcoMobility since its official fouding which took place last December in Bali during the United Nations Climate Conference.
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