Feature: From Pole to Paris: cycling for climate change

A British doctor has promised to meet a friend in Paris on Dec. 5. He is cycling, having left the Antarctic late last year, while the friend runs from the Arctic.

Daniel Price, 27, has a doctorate in satellite assessment of sea ice from the University of Canterbury in New Zealand.

He is leading a public awareness campaign, "Pole to Paris", ahead of the 21st Session of the Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (COP21), which will convene in the French capital later this year.

Price's team of environmental scientists is traveling 20,000 km by bicycle and foot from the Polar Regions to Paris.

He arrived in China three weeks ago. He and his two teammates, Thomas and Theo have cycled from Chengdu, capital of southwest China's Sichuan Province, to Beijing, passing through five cities.

"Climate change is closely related to each of us, no matter where we live," Price said during an exclusive interview with Xinhua. He hopes to inspire the public, especially younger generations, to understand the impacts of climate change.

Cycling 80 to 100 km a day, Price's journey began in the Antarctic, moving to New Zealand, Australia, Southeast Asia and now China.

They have attracted attention along the way. In Bangladesh and Indonesia, local people joined them.

"I could not calculate the number of the people who have been directly influenced by us," Price says.

But the task is not without its risks.

One teammate fell off his bike in the dark in Taiyuan, capital of north China's Shanxi Province.

His right leg was badly injured and covered in blood.

"We took him to the local hospital and spent five hours there while they bandaged the wound," says Price.

They have no regular suppliers of food and drink either. "We have to prepare enough reserves, especially before entering under-developed regions.

His Norwegian friend Erlend Moster Knudsen, a specialist in the Arctic climate, is leading the 3,000-km northern route. "But he does not pass through China," Price says.

They share the experiences on the way though the social network services like Facebook.

They definitely met or will meet severe weather conditions. "But we have been doing our best to arrive at Paris on time," the cyclist says.

Along the way, they are recording the effects of climate change and they have many short videos so far.

Representatives of governments around the world will meet to negotiate a "climate deal" at COP21 from November 30.

"Hopefully our work can be shown ahead of the meeting," Price says.

He expects the COP21 to provide international commitments to curb greenhouse gas emissions as soon as possible, to signal confidence in a renewable future to businesses and investors, and clearly lay out how funding will be provided to the developing world.

"We hope to raise society's awareness," Price says. "And we are looking forward to the negotiations paving the way to serious reductions in anthropogenic CO2 emissions at the meeting in Paris."

The team will leave Beijing on Aug. 22. "We will ride through the Gobi Desert in Mongolia for the next step," Price says. Then they will travel through Russia and Europe.

Huang Yan, communications officer of the Climate Change Program for WWF-Beijing, says young people like Price and Knudson are role models for their peers.

"They are trying to help more people understand climate change and realize the potential crisis brought by the carbon emissions and deforestation," Huang says.

Today's youth will be the first generation that has to deal with severe climate and environmental changes, says Huang, but also the first generation with the opportunity to respond appropriately. Endi