Bikes took a back seat at COP26. Advocates urge Canada to make them a priority in its climate plan

Our planet is changing. So is our journalism. This story is part of a CBC News initiative entitled Our Changing Planet to show and explain the effects of climate change and what is being done about it.

When Gabriel Rivett-Carnac and Lyn Elliott decided 18 months ago to buy out the remainder of their lease and sell their car, they calculated their annual cost of owning it was about $12,000 — especially with the commercial liability insurance for Rivett-Carnac's work as a freelance photographer in Ottawa.

"I've absolutely loved not having to deal with all of the ... mental space that having a car can take up in your brain," said Rivett-Carnac, 37, whose two-and-a-half-year-old son, Ren, loves riding in both the front cargo basket and the cycling stroller attached to the back of the family's Dutch-made Babboe Mini cargo bike.

"There's a lot of conceptions out there that, like, if you don't own a car, it's because you're rich. My wife and I live in a one-bedroom apartment in a big apartment building. We're not rich, but we've made specific choices that have allowed for this."

One thing he says he hopes will improve soon is the amount of room for bikes on the road.

"You realize very, very quickly that there's no space out there, and navigating the space that is there is very challenging," Rivett-Carnac said. "It's frustrating. And you know, sometimes it's scary."

As more Canadians take to the road on two or three wheels instead of four, cycling advocates say COP26, the United Nations climate change conference taking place in Glasgow, has ignored bicycles as one of the cheapest and most efficient tools to reduce carbon emissions and fight climate change by focusing almost entirely on promoting a global shift to electric cars.

The summit's focus on Wednesday turns to transport, with a schedule that the COP26 president's program says "will bring together leaders from across the sector to accelerate the transition to 100 per cent zero emissions vehicles" and "galvanize action to decarbonize the harder-to-abate forms of transport: aviation and shipping."

Many advocates say the summit has failed to seize upon an unprecedented opportunity created by the COVID-19 pandemic, which forced cities around the world to reduce capacity on public transit to limit transmission of the coronavirus and rapidly repurpose streets and other public spaces previously dominated by cars for pedestrians and cyclists to use.

While some panel discussions at the summit have talked about the need to bolster active transportation — walking, cycling and non-mechanized wheelchairing — a quick scan of the COP26 program for any mention of "bikes" or "cycling" brings zero results.

The crisis of a changing climate "clearly shows people can't keep doing the same things and experiencing the same conveniences," including driving all the time, when cheaper zero-emissions alternatives, such as bikes and e-bikes, are readily available, said Kimberley Nelson of Vélo Canada Bikes, an organization that aims to encourage Canadians to cycle more often and to increase cycling infrastructure.

"Everyone's talking about doing all of these other things, like phasing out the combustion engine, but all of those things take time," Nelson told CBC News in an interview from Calgary.

While global leaders barely mention bicycles, Nelson said she's encouraged by "quick wins" in cities such as Paris, Montreal, Berlin and Toronto that are doubling down on their own actions by increasing cycling infrastructure because they've already seen returns on the investments they've made.

"We learned during the pandemic that building bike infrastructure can take a week, in some cases. It's just a matter of shifting where your priorities are," she said. "But it seems with COP26 that these lessons have been lost."