“Suicide ride”, “crazy”, “insane”… just some of the superlatives that have been used to describe my decision to cycle to The Wave. The experienced cyclist who sold me a pair of extortionately priced (and frankly not as warm as he claimed) gloves raised his eyebrows and said “in December?!”. Yes! In December, because that’s when the UN Summit for Climate Change takes place (7-18 December), when our global leaders have the chance of a lifetime to seal a deal on climate change that will put the world’s poorest and most vulnerable communities first.

I recognise that this is a challenge for world leaders; just as it is a challenge for those people who’s everyday lives are threatened by extreme weather. Cyclones in Bangladesh, droughts in Ethiopia, hurricanes in Haiti… Now I face my very own climate challenge: battling the elements (as they predict the possibility of snow), to cycle from Birmingham to The Wave in London to demonstrate my support for a Fair, Ambitious and Binding deal at

Copenhagen.

Cycling represents a zero-carbon mode of transport (no, I haven’t got a limo following me with my luggage), which helps highlight to our government the need for us to cut our emissions by 40% by 2020. That’s one commitment we want from Copenha

gen. The other is a binding agreement from rich countries, the biggest contributors to climate change, to provide $150bn a year in support to developing countries to help them adapt to climate change.

So, only two days to go until I join the “Wheels to the Wave”, a group of fellow cyclists who are setting off from Manchester airport tomorrow. We will be pedalling to London via

some of the UK’s biggest climate crime scenes: East Midlands Airport, Derby; Ratcliffe-on-Soar Power Station, Nottinghamshire; E.ON UK Headquarters, Coventry; Didcot A Power Station, Oxfordshire and Heathrow Airport.

I’m nervous, but if an 80 year old can do it from Leeds, I can do it from Birmingham. I like a challenge.

Wish me luck! And track my progress on twitter (if I can get my numb fingers to tweet!). There will also be video footage of us wheeling our way to The Wave, complete with banners and blue paint on the Oxfam blogs pages, our youtube and flickr accounts.

Blog: www.oxfam.org.uk/midlands (Subscribe to email updates at the bottom of the page)

Twitter: www.twitter.com/oxfammidlands

Youtube: www.youtube.com/oxfammidlands

Flickr: http://www.flickr.com/photos/42754532@N06/

Tags: activism, climate change, Oxfam Midlands, The Wave

This entry was posted by clivingstone on November 30th, 2009 at 3:46 pm and is filed under Oxfam Midlands, You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.