Miles by Jet, Meters by Bicycle
Spain’s Minister of Ecological Transition and Demographic Challenge and Deputy Prime Minister Teresa Ribera faced swift and vehement backlash after an alleged act of hypocrisy.
A viral video depicting Ribera arriving on bicycle to the European Union’s 11 July climate summit in Vilnius, Lithuania has been widely impugned as a garishly gratuitous publicity stunt staged for purpose of upping the minister’s ESG stock and currying favor with the environmental lobby.
Subsequent investigation of Ribera’s travel itinerary indicated she’d traveled to Vilnius via private jet and was conveyed to the vicinity of the climate summit in a chauffeured automobile flanked by a bevy of police escort vehicles.
Some one-hundred-meters from the event venue’s main entrance, Ribera reportedly disembarked the automobile, mounted a bicycle pulled from an accompanying vehicle by one of her entourage, and pedaled piously into view of the gathered world press.
The minister’s brief bicycle-ride was attended by a retinue of two armored police vehicles.
Ribera’s alleged behavior contradicts the outward displays of environmental consciousness in which she habitually indulges.
Twitter user Froilan I De Espana tweeted: “Teresa Ribera’s thing about making you arrive by bicycle at a climate summit, traveling barely a hundred meters, escorted by two armored gasoline cars is another of the images that perfectly define this government.”
Andrew Bridgen added: “She [Ribera] arrived by private jet with a four-car cavalcade and did the last few meters to the climate summit on a bike. She is the Spanish environment minister. Net zero, it will be enforced environmental measures reducing your freedom, standard of living, and ability to travel—but not for them.”
As news of Ribera’s actions spread, protestations of her and other government officials’ behavior proliferated and intensified, culminating in demands for accountability.
Western politicians have faced widespread criticism for maintaining double standards vis-à-vis climate change and environmental policies. Chronically predisposed to condemning their constituents’ use of fossil fuels, the likes of Ribera, U.S. Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg, California Governor Gavin Newsom, U.S. Special Presidential Envoy for Climate John Kerry, and Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau prattle in perpetuity about alleged climate exigencies while, themselves, maintaining their own documented carbon footprints.
In February 2023, Senate lawmakers deemed Buttigieg’s travel aboard tax-payer-funded private jets sufficiently excessive to merit an as-of-yet active formal investigation by the Department of Transportation's Inspector General.
Similarly, Kerry and Trudeau are both in the verifiable and regular habit of hopping private jets to avoid traffic jams.
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