COP27: London lights up to show cycling’s role in fighting climate change

By Sam Jones
Thursday, 10 November 2022
As world politicians gather in Egypt to discuss the planet’s future, charity Cycling UK’s light projections remind UK decision-makers that cycling represents one of tomorrow’s solutions to today’s problems
  • Projections beamed onto locations including the Shard and the Sphinx on the Embankment
  • Coordinated by charity Cycling UK to send message to political leaders for COP27
  • High resolution photos available on request

Iconic London sites were lit up last night with an important message for the world’s leaders ahead of Decarbonisation Day at the COP 27: don’t forget cycling’s capacity to fight climate change.

The charity Cycling UK coordinated the projections to call on political leaders across the UK to invest in cycling, and to make the case for cycling’s role in battling climate change at the COP27 UN climate conference being hosted in Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt, from 6-18 November.

The messages were beamed on and around locations including the Shard and the Sphinx on the Embankment.

Domestic transport is the UK’s biggest polluting sector, accounting for a quarter of the UK’s greenhouse gas emissions.

The projections highlight that urgent investment in cycling and other modes of active travel is key to decarbonising transport and tackling climate change.

Duncan Dollimore, Cycling UK’s head of campaigns, said:

“It’s right our domestic and world leaders look to technological solutions to tackle the urgent problems presented by climate change, but to rely solely on tomorrow’s technology would make them the worst kind of fools.

“We can fight climate change without having to reinvent the wheel. Transport is one of our biggest polluters, but with so many of our shorter journeys easily cycled or walked, one of the simple, cheap and sustainable solutions is to make cycling easier and more accessible for more people.

“Investment in cycling can help to save our planet, but time is running out. At the current rate of reduction, it would take 600 years to reduce the UK’s transport emissions to zero. Cycling can play a key role in decarbonising transport, but urgent action and investment is essential to enable more people to cycle.”

Notes to editors

  1. Cycling UK, the UK’s cycling charity, imagines a world where the streets are free of congestion and the air is clean to breathe, where parents encourage their children to cycle to school and everyone shares the exhilaration of being in the saddle. For more than 140 years, we’ve been making our streets safer, opening up new traffic free routes and inspiring more people to cycle more often. www.cyclinguk.org
  2. More information about how cycling fights climate change is available at https://www.cyclinguk.org/climatechange
  3. For high resolution photos of the projections on the above locations go to: https://www.skyfish.com/p/cyclinguk/2159932

Press contact information

For more information, please email [email protected]. Out of hours, call 07786 320 713. 

COP27 Climate change Campaigner and activist

Further reading