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In search of climate solutions

Sonya DiehnJuly 9, 2015

DW journalists Ruth Krause and Anne-Sophie Brändlin embark on a 10-day low-carbon road trip showcasing solutions to climate change at the heart of Europe.

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Our Road to Paris

Their trip begins in Berlin, with a ride on a solar ferry to the Reichstag - the climate-friendly building that houses the German parliament - where the reporters talk with the German environment minister about plans to stem global warming.

From there, the two will travel via e-car to Ferropolis, a former coal mine that is now a venue for summer music festivals. Wherever possible in their search for climate heroes, the pair will use low-carbon methods of transport.

After finding out more in Ferropolis about efforts toward greening the summer music festival scene, Anne-Sophie and Ruth will head to Hambach, Germany, to camp in the forest with environmental activists who are occupying a forest to prevent expansion of an open-pit coal mine. They'll also talk to the mine operator.

In Amsterdam, the duo will look into innovative ways of handling plastic waste - by meeting up with people who are fishing plastic out of canals. In Belgium, the two will talk to activists about ground-breaking legal action around climate change.

Ending in Paris, the reporters will speak with policy-makers ahead of COP21 negotiations - the 2015 Paris Climate Conference - about what it will take to lock in a new climate treaty.

DW's low-carbon road trip -map

Daily blog

Anne-Sophie and Ruth will provide daily updates on the low-carbon road trip experience - a blog of their journey will go up every evening at dw.com. You can also follow the journey on Twitter and Instagram under the hashtag #ClimateRoadtrip. They'll even measure their carbon footprint for each leg of the trip.

The trip is part of the special media project "Our Road to Paris" which is sharing success stories on how Europeans are tackling climate change. Through the journey, Ruth and Anne-Sophie are not only setting an example for how a low-carbon future is possible - they are also finding out what it truly means to travel, consume and live in closer harmony with the Earth.

Videos, audio reports and online articles in English and German from the journey will be published after the trip, at the beginning of August.

The videos will run on DW's television program Global 3000, and the radio reports on DW's English-language environment radio show Living Planet.

The trip will be presented online in English at dw.com/climatechange, and in German at dw.com/klima. The multimedia project is being carried out by DW Environment in partnership with Global Ideas, under DW Business & Science.

Contact: Sonya Diehn, Environment Team Leader