Idea for a zero carbon world concert

Unfortunately, Copenhagen didn't get the climate deal we needed. There is therefore another opportunity to publicise the issues and get through to the politicians before the next climate summit in Mexico at the end of this year. We could hold a zero carbon world concert to demand a zero carbon world. Please get in touch if you have any ideas on how to do this, or contacts with musicians, organisers, or renewable electricity energy providers, by emailing chris.keene@tiscali.co.uk or phoning +44 (0)1603 614535

Thanks

This is a somewhat belated note to thank everyone who helped with the zero carbon caravan - all those who helped with the organisation and advice, gave donations, contributed to the website, made applications for grants, all those who provided food and accommodation, those who arranged meetings, press conferences and visits, and got in touch with the press, those who helped out when I got lost, helped with writing press releases, organised some wonderful parties on the way, helped fixing cycles, played in concerts, participated in conferences and meetings, cycled with us on the journey, or gave a lift on a yacht.

We got quite a bit of media coverage - three TV interviews and four on radio, mentions in the Times, Independent, Guardian and Telegraph and dozens of local newspapers, and lots of coverage on the internet.

We visited lots of interesting places showing solutions to climate change - in transport, energy, buildings, lifestyle and food production, as well as interviewing lots of people and visiting some really inspiring places demonstrating such ideas to the public.

We had four zero carbon concerts - two acoustic, one using solar electricity, and the other using electricity generated by a bicycle, and we held an international telephone conference at the University of East Anglia, as well as numerous public meetings.

In Copenhagen, the information collected on the journey was put onto datasticks and presented to two parliamentarians, Colin Challen, the chair of the All Party Parliamentary Climate Change Group in the UK, and Ingrid Nestle, the spokesperson on energy economics for the Greens in the German Parliament.

Chris Keene
Coordinator, Zero Carbon Caravan

Should we Seattleise Copenhagen?

Norwich Green Party councillor Rupert Read has suggested it is time to Seattleise Copenhagen, as any agreement is likely to be even worse than Kyoto, but when I put this to the panel from Greenpeace and Action Aid who were giving us an update on the negotiations at Klimaforum on Tuesday evening, they were against the idea, as we don't have time to wait around - they thought there was still hope something better could come from Copenhagen

Copenhagen

I've finally arrived in Copenhagen, having had to do the last bit on the train, since they don't allow you to cross the bridge to Zealand (the island on which Copenhagen sits) on a cycle, so my trip wasn't completely zero carbon.

But I think this is an important illustration that individuals alone cannot defeat climate change - the reason why I could not cycle on the bridge is a political one, and it is a combination of individual action and politics that will be effective.

The rumours here are that a Copenhagen agreement, if we do get one, will be even worse than Kyoto, retaining its bad aspects - the offsets which mean there can be no true cap on emissions, and removing the good ones - the binding emission reduction targets, which would be replaced by voluntary ones.

Tomorrow I am making a presentation (10am to noon) and a press conference (3pm) on my journey and the solutions I have discovered, at the Klimaforum .

Aabenraa

Finally left Flensburg today, to travel into Denmark - the end of a great time with Clemens, Sam and Julian, the three students of energy and environmental management I've been staying with for the past couple of weeks.
I've now joined up with Kim Nguyens and his group.www.rideplanetearth.org Kim has cycled all the way from Australia, but the rest of us have been shorter distances.
We got as far as Aabenraa today, but we've got a 75 km ride tomorrow, and my gears aren't working.

Dirkshof

On Friday I cycled 50km across northern Germany to the North Sea coast, to visit Dirkshof, the first publicly owned wind farm in Germany, started 20 years ago by farmer Dirk Ketelsen, who has many of his neighbours as shareholders in an extremely profitable venture bringing 10% per annum return on investment thanks to the German renewable energy law with its feed-in tariffs

Zero Carbon Sonderborg

At last I have found it - a place bold enough to make the case for zero carbon emissions (not just low carbon emissions, which is a fairly meaningless term since it can be used to mean almost anything, including 1% less than business as usual).
Zero Carbon Sonderborg has extremely ambitious proposals to get to zero emissions by 2029, and they have been carefully worked out in a plan which is about to be published.
They have a number of innovative initiatives on how to do it, including zero families; a zero plus house, which generates more energy than it uses (so you get a cheque from the electricity company, not a bill - that should go down well with the public!); Bright Green Youth which organised a conference in August this year to come up with climate solutions, which will be presented to the COP in Denmark, and implemented in Sonderborg this year; zero farming, involving energy saving ideas and using manure to generate energy; zero municipality; and business (Bright Green Business).
I meet with managing director Peter Rathje and his assistant Christian, and they explain the ideas behind Zero Carbon Sonderborg.They have solved the problem of transportation without using oil by going electric - the same idea promoted by the Centre for Alternative Technology in their Zero Carbon Britain report