Cycling Stars at Copenhagen Climate Conference

COPENHAGEN, Denmark – That cycling can effectively contribute in stopping global warming, is the message European Cyclists Federation (ECF) president Manfred Neun (left on photo) is spreading at the current Copenhagen Climate Conference. Also London Mayor Boris Johnson is putting bikes in the spotlights.

At the start of the Copenhagen Climate Conference ECF president Manfred Neun (pictured here with Marie Kastrup, Copenhagen program co-ordinator Velo-city Global 2010), sent a letter to all the members of European Parliament's delegation attending the conference. In this letter the ECF stated that urban traffic is responsible for 40% of all CO2 emissions.

“Transport is part of the problem. However, cycling is part of the solution. A tripling of cycling (*) in Europe at the expense of individual motorized trips, would save 49.1 million tons of CO2 or 5 % of CO2 transport emissions.” (*) Click here to see the Charter of Brussels

Also London Mayor Boris Johnson, like many other Mayors of the biggest cities around the globe attending the Climate Conference, was putting cycling on the agenda. He did that by referring to London’s bike hire scheme that will celebrate its start in the summer of 2010. He said to his colleague Mayors that bike hire schemes are the way forward for cities. On his Twitter account the London Mayor reported: “I told the summit that Paris’ Velib is great, but ours will be the Rolls Royce of bike hire schemes.”

London’s cycle hire scheme is coming in the summer of 2010 and will be a public bicycle sharing scheme for short journeys in and around central London. 400 special docking stations are planned with about 10,200 docking spaces. With more spaces than bicycles it will be easier for users to drop off the hired bicycles at the docking station of choice. The over 6,000 bikes will stand out as Cycle Hire bicycles to avoid stealing or damaging and for that the docking stations will be secured by CCTV.