She has pedaled thousands of kilometers from Sweden to Egypt’s Red Sea resort of Sharm el-Sheikh to deliver a simple message: Stop climate change.
The trip took 72-year-old activist Dorothee Hildebrandt and her pink e-bike — which she fondly calls Miss Piggy, after the temperamental character from The Muppet Show — more than four months. She crisscrossed Europe and the Middle East until she arrived in Sharm el-Sheikh, at the southern tip of the Sinai Peninsula.
Her mission is to raise awareness and urge world leaders gathered at the UN’s COP27 climate conference to take concrete steps to stop climate change, she said.
Photo: AP
Greenhouse gas emissions continue to rise and scientists say the amount of heat-trapping gases needs to be almost halved by 2030, to meet the temperature-limiting goals of the Paris climate accord of 2015.
Since her arrival a week ago, Hildebrandt and her e-bike have become a fixture at the summit. From a friend’s place where she is staying, about 15km from the conference center, she bikes to the COP27 venue every day, meeting other activists and attending events. Many are keen to take photographs with her around the conference venue.
“They really have to stop climate change,” Hildebrandt said of the world leaders. “Even if it is uncomfortable.”
Photo: AP
“It was uncomfortable for me ... this long ride,” she said, adding that she wanted to show that if there’s a will “you can do it.”
Past climate talks have traditionally seen very large protests at the end of the first week of the two-week summit, often drawing thousands. This year has been mostly muted, with sporadic and small demonstrations during the first week.
Activists have blamed the high cost of travel, accommodation and restrictions in the isolated Egyptian city for limiting the numbers of demonstrators.
The largest demonstration so far was on Saturday, a day after US President Joe Biden made his stop at the summit. Hundreds of protesters chanted, sang, and danced in an area not far from where the negotiations were taking place amid tight security.
Born in the town of Kassel in central Germany, Hildebrandt said she got her first bicycle at the age of 10 and never stopped pedaling.
In 1978, she moved to Sweden to marry her ex-husband.
She retired in 2015. Her activism and biking, which she documents on social media, is for the children and further generations of the world, she said.
A sign on her bike reads, “Biking for Future and Peace.”
In her hometown of Katrineholm, 150km southwest of Stockholm, she founded GrandmasForFuture - Katrineholm. The group focuses on raising awareness about climate change among other things.
Hildebrandt said that she also wants Western industrialized nations to pay for the destruction they have caused so far — an issue called loss and damage, about reparations from big polluters to the global south that has been hurt the most.
Unhappy with results from the previous climate conference, COP26 in Glasgow, Scotland, she saw her chance in Sharm el-Sheikh.
Starting out on July 1, Hildebrandt cycled through 17 countries, covering 8,228km, averaging about 80km a day.
Her Facebook posts got thousands of views and she said she received positive feedback from followers and people she met along the way.
In the Turkish coastal city of Antalya, her bike broke down. A cyclist, who works in tourism in the city, took Hildebrandt and her bike to a mechanic for repairs, and she was able to continue on.
In Lebanon, she took taxies from the port city of Tripoli to Beirut for her safety. She then had a mandatory guide with a vehicle and a driver to travel to the Jordanian border through Syria.
“I could have used my bike throughout Syria, but the costs would have been too high for me,” she said.
Even in Sinai, local authorities barred her from cycling from the port of Nuweiba to Sharm el-Sheikh, apparently for her safety, she said.
Still, she is confident she has gotten her message across.
On Thursday, she was invited to cycle with Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah al-Sissi, an avid cyclist.
She asked the president about the lack of large protests, compared with previous summits.
She said al-Sissi said protests are not barred in Egypt.
“Everyone is allowed to demonstrate everywhere in Cairo and Sharm el-Sheikh” he told her, Hildebrandt said.
COP27 has turned a spotlight on a years-long crackdown on dissent in Egypt, where most public protests are effectively banned by the authorities.
After the summit ends on Friday, Hildebrandt plans to bike to Cairo, then on to the Mediterranean city of Alexandria before going to Israel’s port of Haifa and from there, on to Greece.
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