26th October 2006

Together cyclists will tackle climate change

The Government has recently awarded the UK’s national cyclists’ organisation, CTC, almost £300,000 to raise awareness of climate change amongst cyclists. At the heart of the project will be a thought-provoking short film to be shown this summer in cinemas and on other media.

CTC has been getting cyclists onto their bikes for 128 years. In 1896, just as the first cars were venturing onto the cyclists’ roads and CTC members were equipping themselves with the new pneumatic tyres, Swedish chemist Svante Arrhenius realised that carbon dioxide released from burning coal would lead to global warming. Today the science has been confirmed - over the last two hundred years levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere have increased by 30%. Just under a third of the greenhouse gas emissions that we produce come from transport, households and industry each.

CTC Fundraiser, Chris Peck, said: “Cyclists are already ahead of the game – every trip we make on the bike rather than the car does something to reduce our own impact. As we and the rest of the population understand more about the challenge of climate change we will begin to do more about it. “

“Climate change has been growing in importance over the last few years as more and more people realise the seriousness of the challenge that we are facing. To tackle climate change everyone will have to play their part – from the Government down to kids riding their bikes to school.”

Notes

• CTC is the national organisation for all cyclists in the UK and Ireland, including children, families, and commuters. CTC has 70,000 members and affiliates and is the oldest and largest cycling body in the UK. www.ctc.org.uk

• The ten warmest years on record have all been since 1990. Six of the ten warmest years on record in the UK were between 1995 and 2004. 2006 has featured the warmest July and September on record. Average sea levels in the UK are already 10cms higher than they were in 1900.

• Current predictions indicate that by the end of the 21st century the global average temperature will increase by between 1.4 and 5.8 degrees, resulting in more frequent heatwaves in Europe or possibly the collapse of the warmth-bringing ocean currents called the thermohaline circulation.