Environment Forum
Global environmental challenges
Solar car “crashes” at end of round the world trip
Luckily for my colleague, photographer Kacper Pempel, this solar powered “taxi” was not going very fast when it smashed through a wall of polystyrene at the end of a 52,000 km trip around the world.
It stopped pretty much in the debris of the makeshift wall after the deliberate “crash” marking the finish outside the venue of Dec. 1-12 U.N. climate talks in Poland. (Click here for a story)
Driver Louis Palmer, a Swiss teacher (in blue, lower right), has driven through 38 nations over 17 months, the first time a solar-powered car has gone round the world. He ended the final stretch at U.N. climate talks with Yvo de Boer, the head of the U.N. Climate Change Secretariat as a passenger.
I have enjoyed following Louis’ travels. He once gave me a lift a year ago at the last U.N. climate conference in Bali, Indonesia and the car was certainly zippier under the tropical sun than it was in mid-winter Poland. Whatever the location the car was quite difficult to drive because of its length: it tows a flat-backed trailer covered with solar panels.
