EU Climate Diplomacy Week 2020, Anies Appreciates Nordic Countries for Supporting Bicycle as Environmentally Friendly Transportation

As a part of EU Climate Diplomacy Week 2020, Jakarta Governor, Anies Baswedan, together with ambassadors of Nordic countries cycling along Jalan Senayan to the Nordic Embassies Offices in Mega Kuningan, South Jakarta, on Thursday (11/5). In this event, Jakarta was chosen to campaign for a healthy and sustainable urban life and environmentally friendly transportation.

Hopefully there will be more people who carry out similar activity

This cycling activity was carried out along 8 kilometers. Anies conveyed his appreciation to Ambassadors of European Union, Denmark, Sweden, Norway, and Finland for supporting bicycle transportation by holding The Nordic Bicycling Event. He hopes this initiation will increase number of people using environmentally friendly vehicles.

"I would like to thank Ambassadors of the Nordic countries who today experience and celebrate the more massive use of bicycles in Jakarta. Hopefully there will be more people who carry out similar activity," he said as quoted from Jakarta PPID Press Release, on Thursday (11/5).

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The enthusiasm of Ambassadors of the Nordic countries is in line with Jakarta Government's commitment to improve infrastructure for environmentally friendly vehicles and pedestrians. For information, Jakarta Government has a target to build bicycle lanes as long as 500 kilometers through out Jakarta.

"Jakarta Government welcomes and appreciates it. Indeed, we are encouraging people to use environmentally friendly transportation. Therefore, we need to support infrastructure development for environmentally friendly facilities, including sidewalks for pedestrians, bicycle lanes, and public transportation thus Jakarta can be more environmentally friendly city," he stated.

Furthermore, Jakarta Government also has a program called Jakarta Langit Biru which aims to encourage people to switch to environmentally friendly vehicles to protect environment in Jakarta.

"Then we realized that during COVID-19 pandemic, there was a new atmosphere. When pollution decreases, we can see blue sky in Jakarta. We have experienced it for several months, thus we hope our 'Jakarta Langit Biru' program can encourage more electric-based vehicles, and more environmentally friendly energy," he mentioned.

He hopes that public can be more aware of their environment because resilience of a city is determined not only by city's economy, but also the balance between economy and ecology.

"Awareness about environmental issues must be strengthen. The future of a city is very much determined by city's resilience in environmental context. Don't let economic activities become intensive, but at the expense of ecology. Economy and ecology must go together. This is what we want to improve together," he explained.

For information, EU Climate Diplomacy Week is an annual event in which the European Union and its member countries organize various events to encourage dialogue and cooperation in climate change field. In a commitment for realizing sustainable urban solutions, EU Delegations and Nordic Embassies give their support to this event to strengthen partnership between Jakarta, European Union, and Nordic countries.

Moreover, the Nordic has a mission in the capital city to hold a high-level cycling events but in a small scale. It is to promote cycling and a healthy and sustainable urban development. Therefore, the Danish Ambassador to Indonesia, Lars Bo Larsen expressed his enthusiasm after trying out bicycle lanes that have been built in Jakarta.

"Even though it was raining, but today was very fun. We are grateful that Governor also joined us to celebrate this day," he conveyed.