New York - UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon rode a Swiss-made, fully solar-powered vehicle to work at UN headquarters on Friday as part of his efforts to raise awareness of dangers of climate change. He has already raised the thermostat by 3 degrees Celsius at UN headquarters during the summer to set an example of UN responsibility to save the climate by lowering emissions of carbon dioxide from the old UN structure built in the early 1950s.
Ban rode the so-called "Solartaxi" from his residence just a few blocks from his office on the 38th floor at the UN, saying that he was delighted by the trip and asked for an encore.
"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," Ban said upon arriving at the UN to begin his daily work.
"We need to really address these energy issues and also address the climate change issues," he said. "We must find good solutions in Poznan, Poland, in December this year."
The Poznan conference on climate change will be followed by another one in Copenhagen in 2009 to try to work out an "accepted and a very efficient, balanced, effective and ratifiable treaty replacing the Kyoto Protocol by 2012," Ban said.
The UN said Ban's "green commute occurred as part of the Secretary-General's efforts since taking office to raise awareness about climate change and to promote environmentally-friendly technologies."
The Solartaxi is making a world tour, starting last December with a first appearance at the Bali, Indonesia, international conference on climate change. The tiny vehicle will travel to Poznan, Poland, in early December for the second round of climate change talks.
"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," Louis Palmer, the Solartaxi's driver and developer, said in demonstrating that solutions do exist to resolve some of the climate change problems.
In August when New York broiled in the summer heat, Ban launched a "Cool UN" plan by limiting the use of air conditioning and heating in to order to slash greenhouse gas emissions and save money for the world organization.
The plan was not well received as the unevenly air-conditioned building drove up the temperatures in some parts of the building more than others.
The "Cool UN" plan will be switched off next week just before the arrival of heads of state and government, and delegates from the 192 UN nations to attend the opening of the 63rd session of the UN General Assembly.
They apparently needcooler temperatures for their heated debate.
