Riding from Venice to Brussels for Climate Change
26th October – 7th November 2019
WHY YOU SHOULD RIDE TO BRUSSELS?
The 25th session of the Conference of the Parties (COP 25) to the UNFCCC* will take place in Chile, from 11 to 22 November 2019.
In the past years RWU has already reached, starting from Venice, the headquarters of many COPs, such as: Paris (2015), Bonn (2017) and finally Katowice (2018). However, this year it would make any sense to fly towards Chile and riding to the headquarters of the COP25. In this way, in fact, our ride will become meaningless underestimating the significance of a sustainable mobility and a low-carbon model.
On the other hand, the 2019 represents a crucial year for the European Union, characterized by the elections of the European Parliament and, subsequently, the establishment of the new EU Commission. These are key steps, not only for the future of the EU itself, but also for the upcoming climate policies.
This is why we decided to ride to Brussels, stopping by such cities that represent the European leadership’ rule (e.g. Strasbourg and Maastricht) that we would like to go back again within the battle against climate change.
In order to emphasize this message along our journey throughout the EU, we have decided to turn into postmen, by collecting letters from citizens and the mayors of the cities that we will stop by, in order to deliver in person their messages to the European Commission in Brussels.
THE JOURNEY
The departure day is scheduled on October 26th 2019 from Venice, we planned to arrive in Brussels on November 7th, after 13 days and over 1,300 km by bike.
We have planned to stop in the following cities:
| Stage n. | Arrival Town | Country | Date |
| 1 | Bassano del Grappa | Italy | 26th October |
| 2 | Trento | Italy | 27th October |
| 3 | Merano | Italy | 28th October |
| 4 | S. Valentino alla Muta | Italy | 29th October |
| 5 | Davos | Switzerland | 30th October |
| 6 | Kostanz | Germany | 31st October |
| 7 | Freiburg | Germany | 1st November |
| 8 | Strassburg | France | 2nd November |
| 9 | Ludwigshafen | Germany | 3rd November |
| 10 | Koblenz | Germany | 4th November |
| 11 | Köln | Germany | 5th November |
| 12 | Maastricht | The Netherlands | 6th November |
| 13 | Brussels | Belgium | 7th November |
THE STORY
The journey will be told day by day directly from the voice of the protagonists on our official website (www.ridewithus.eu/brussels/) and/or on RWU Facebook page (https://www.facebook.com/RideWithUsCC/).
The official website already includes the description of the past four trips, when we rode for about 2,000 km from Venice to Copenhagen (2014), 1,350 km to Paris (2015), 600 km to Turin (2016), 1,160 km to Bonn (2017) and finally 1,300 to arrive in Katowice (2018).
INFORMATIVE NOTES
*About the UNFCCC
With 195 Parties, the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) has near universal membership and is the parent treaty of the 1997 Kyoto Protocol. The Kyoto Protocol has been ratified by 192 of the UNFCCC Parties. For the first commitment period of the Kyoto Protocol, 37 States, consisting of highly industrialized countries and countries undergoing the process of transition to a market economy, have legally bound emission limitation and reduction commitments. In Doha in 2012, the Conference of the Parties serving as the meeting of the Parties to the Kyoto Protocol adopted an amendment to the Kyoto Protocol, which establishes the second commitment period under the Protocol. The ultimate objective of both treaties is to stabilize greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere at a level that will prevent dangerous human interference with the climate system.