UN Secretary General Ban Ki Moon commutes in the solartaxi12.09.2008

Tags: United States       Comments: 5

Secretary-General’s press encounter upon arrival at UN Headquarters
New York, 12 September 2008 (unofficial transcript)

Q: How was the ride?

SG: Very good. This is a unique and fantastic experience for me.

Q: Are you going to do it on a regular basis?

SG: If he provides me this car. (laughter)

This is my first ride in an entirely solar-powered vehicle, the
Solartaxi. I hope this is not the last time. I have seen this when I was
in Bali. I wanted to ride it, but I was very busy. I thank Mr. [Louis]
Palmer for this very creative initiative. This is definitely a very
creative initiative, yet a very practical way of finding solutions to a
low-carbon future. This can be one of the very practical solutions to
our sustainable energy needs. As we now address climate change, this can
also give us a very good [way forward] to our solutions.

And I am particularly pleased this morning to ride this car, the
Solartaxi, just a few minutes before I am going to have a
videoconference meeting with President [Susilo Bambang] Yudhoyono of
Indonesia, Prime Minister [Donald] Tusk of Poland, and Prime Minister
[Anders Fogh] Rasmussen of Denmark, who are the current presidents and
future presidents of the UNFCCC (UN Framework Convention on Climate
Change) presidencies.

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. We need to really address these
energy issues and also address the climate change issues. We must find
good solutions in Poznan, Poland, in December this year.

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. This is a historical
responsibility of the world. And I am very grateful to the Government of
Switzerland and also the United Nations Environment Programme, UNEP, for
the support and sponsoring this initiative. And I hope many governments
and many foundations and many individuals in the business field can also
contribute to our common effort to address this climate change issue.
And thank you very much.

Personally this is a fantastic experience. I hope I can enjoy another
ride. And I thank very much Mr. Palmer for raising awareness of these
energy issues and climate change issues by driving around the world. I
was told he has driven already one full round of the earth, about 40,000
kilometres. I wish you all the best and good health and good fortune.
And give some strong messages. I have been waving to many pedestrians
while driving here. They look at me with curiosity but they all welcomed
me. They immediately realized this is a solar taxi. This is what we are
doing. Thank you very much.

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