Secretary-General Ban
Ki-moon arrived at work at United Nations
Headquarters on Friday morning 12 September
in environmental style, taking the “Solartaxi”
– a fully solar-powered car – from his home
in New York to the Secretariat building.
Mr. Ban’s green commute,
which he described as a “fantastic experience,”
occurred as part of his efforts since taking
office to raise awareness about climate
change and to promote environmentally-friendly
technologies.
“I hope that this Solartaxi, one of the
alternate sources of energy, can give some
good messages to the people around the world
that we need to be creative, we need to
be practical,” he told reporters upon arriving
at work.
“I hope I can enjoy
another ride,” Mr. Ban said, adding that
he waved at pedestrians on the streets of
New York from the Solartaxi during his commute.
The vehicle, which is
sponsored by Switzerland, is currently in
New York as part of a worldwide journey
that included a stop in Bali, Indonesia,
last December for the landmark climate change
negotiations.
The voyage is slated to conclude in Poznan
in early December to coincide with the next
phase of the international talks on measures
to respond, mitigate and adapt to global
warming to be held in the Polish city.
“This Poznan conference
should serve as a very successful bridge
to the Copenhagen meeting next year so that
we will be able to agree on a globally accepted,
a very efficient, balanced, effective and
ratifiable treaty replacing the Kyoto Protocol
by 2012,” the Secretary-General stated.
Today, he also had a
videoconference with Indonesian President
Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, Polish Prime Minister
Donald Tusk and Danish Prime Minister Anders
Fogh Rasmussen – leaders of nations which
hold the current and future presidencies
of the UN Framework Convention on Climate
Change (UNFCCC).
Louis Palmer, the Solartaxi’s driver and
developer, said he was on a mission to illustrate
that solutions exist to deal with some of
the problems caused by climate change.
“As climate change doesn’t
stop at borders, it’s a global problem and
the UN is playing a central role in the
fight to stop global warming,” he said.
Last month Mr. Ban began
the “Cool UN” initiative at UN Headquarters
to limit the use of air conditioning and
heating, slash greenhouse gas emissions
and save money.
The thermostats in most
parts of the landmark Secretariat building
were raised by five degrees from 72 to 77
degrees Fahrenheit during August, and the
heating, ventilation and air-conditioning
systems were shut down over the weekends.
This initiative has since been extended
until mid-September.
