Transport Day at this year’s UN climate conference COP19 in Warsaw, supported by ECF and organized by our partners SLoCaT, hopes to show the world's policy makers how important the transport sector is for climate change. A message to be underlined by a huge bike ride through Warsaw.

Since 11 November, much is at stake for the world's climate. For the 19th time, the Conference of the Parties (COP) to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) is taking place this year in Warsaw, the Polish capital. And as every year, there is a grain of hope that negotiators will finally agree on a follow-up to the Kyoto protocol, the only binding agreement on greenhouse gas reductions agreed on in 1997.

Transport Day is a side event to COP19 taking place on 17 November. It has one aim first and foremost: to show the world's policy makers that the transport sector is one of the biggest and fastest-growing emitters of CO2 - and that any new agreement or changes to the UNFCCC will have to take account of transport in order to be effective.

Getting attention for transport

"Mitigating climate change will not be possible if policy makers are not paying enough attention to transport as a source of emissions", says Cornie Huizenga from SLoCaT, the main organizer of the event."We want to demonstrate the contribution transport can make to mitigation and adaptation, we want to call for better integration of transport into climate policy making and make sure the UNFCCC contains instruments that are appropriate for the transport sector," Cornie explains.

Cornie and the SLoCaT team have seized the opportunity and visibility that the yearly climate summit provides and organized Transport Day, an all-day event with high-level speakers, as a side-event to the conference. Among the speakers are such big names as Rajenda Pachauri, chairperson of the Nobel-prize winning International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).

The Climate Ride

But in fact transport day will already begin a day earlier - with a bicycle ride. On this Saturday 16 November, people from Warsaw as well as guests will be invited to ride through the city and raise awareness for sustainable transport modes. "There's no better way of doing this than by cycling", says Cornie Huizenga. "It's one of the most, if not the most, low-carbon forms of mobility there is. And we want to showcase these options to policy makers taking part in the conference."

On Sunday 17 November, then, participants in Transport Day will sign the Warsaw Statement on Sustainable Transport which will be sent to the negotiators. Cornie Huizenga hopes this declaration will be a wake-up call just before the end of the conference. ECF has already signed the statement, and others can do so until 18 November.

Now all that's left to do is go to Warsaw and ride a bike.

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