So I am attending the Energy and Resources Institute climate conference in New Delhi, and during the afternoon session two young American women — along with one of their mothers — proposition me.
“Hey, Mr. Friedman,” they say, “would you like to take a little spin around New Delhi in our car?”
Oh, I say, I’ve heard that line before. Ah, they say, but you haven’t seen this car before. It’s a plug-in electric car that is also powered by rooftop solar panels — and the two young women, recent Yale grads, had just driven it all over India in a “climate caravan” to highlight the solutions to global warming being developed by Indian companies, communities, campuses and innovators, as well as to inspire others to take action.

They ask me if I want to drive, but I have visions of being stopped by the cops and ending up in a New Delhi jail. Not to worry, they tell me. Indian cops have been stopping them all across India. First, they ask to see driver’s licenses, then they inquire about how the green car’s solar roof manages to provide 10 percent of its mileage — and then they try to buy the car.

We head off down Panchsheel Marg, one of New Delhi’s main streets. The ladies want to show me something. The U.S. Embassy and the Chinese Embassy are both located on Panchsheel, directly across from each other. They asked me to check out the rooftops of each embassy. What do I notice? Let’s see ... The U.S. Embassy’s roof is loaded with antennae and listening gear. The Chinese Embassy’s roof is loaded with ... new Chinese-made solar hot-water heaters.
You couldn’t make this up.

But trying to do something about it was just one of many reasons my hosts, Caroline Howe, 23, a mechanical engineer on leave from the Yale School of Forestry and Environmental Studies, and Alexis Ringwald, a Fulbright scholar in India and now a solar entrepreneur, joined with Kartikeya Singh, who was starting the Indian Youth Climate Network, or IYCN, to connect young climate leaders in India, a country coming under increasing global pressure to manage its carbon footprint.
“India is full of climate innovators, so spread out across this huge country that many people don’t get to see that these solutions are working right now,” said Howe. “We wanted to find a way to bring people together around existing solutions to inspire more action and more innovation. There’s no time left to just talk about the problem.”
Howe and Ringwald thought the best way to do that might be a climate solutions road tour, using modified electric cars from India’s Reva Electric Car Company, whose C.E.O. Ringwald knew. They persuaded him to donate three of his cars and to retrofit them with longer-life batteries that could travel 90 miles on a single six-hour charge — and to lay on a solar roof that would extend them farther.

Between Jan. 1 and Feb. 5, they drove the cars on a 2,100-mile trip from Chennai to New Delhi, stopping in 15 cities and dozens of villages, training Indian students to start their own climate action programs and filming 20 videos of India’s top home-grown energy innovations.They also brought along a solar-powered band, plus a luggage truck that ran on plant oil extracted from jatropha and pongamia, plants locally grown on wasteland. A Bollywood dance group joined at different stops and a Czech who learned about their trip on YouTube hopped on with his truck that ran on vegetable-oil waste.

Deepa Gupta, 21, a co-founder of IYCN, told The Hindustan Times that the trip opened her eyes to just how many indigenous energy solutions were budding in India — “like organic farming in Andhra Pradesh, or using neem and garlic as pesticides, or the kind of recycling in slums, such as Dharavi. We saw things already in place, like the Gadhia solar plant in Valsad, Gujarat, where steam is used for cooking and you can feed almost 50,000 people in one go.” (See: www.indiaclimatesolutions.com.)
At Rajpipla, in Gujarat, when they stopped at a local prince’s palace to recharge their cars, they discovered that his business was cultivating worms and selling them as eco-friendly alternatives to chemical fertilizers.
I met Howe and Ringwald after a tiring day, but I have to admit that as soon as they started telling me their story it really made me smile. After a year of watching adults engage in devastating recklessness in the financial markets and depressing fecklessness in the global climate talks, it’s refreshing to know that the world keeps minting idealistic young people who are not waiting for governments to act, but are starting their own projects and driving innovation.

London/Nairobi, 22 October 2008--Mobilizing and re-focusing the global economy towards investments in clean technologies and ‘natural’ infrastructure such as forests and soils is the best bet for real growth, combating climate change and triggering an employment boom in the 21st century.
 The call was made today by the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) and leading economists as they launched the Green Economy Initiative aimed at seizing an historic opportunity to bring about tomorrow’s economy today.
 Achim Steiner, UN Under-Secretary General and UNEP Executive Director, said: ”The financial, fuel and food crises of 2008 are in part a result of speculation and a failure of governments to intelligently manage and focus markets”.
 “But they are also part of a wider market failure triggering ever deeper and disturbing losses of natural capital and nature-based assets coupled with an over-reliance of finite, often subsidized fossil fuels,” he said.
 “The flip side of the coin is the enormous economic, social and environmental benefits likely to arise from combating climate change and re-investing in natural infrastructure—benefits ranging from new green jobs in clean tech and clean energy businesses up to ones in sustainable agriculture and conservation-based enterprises,” he added.
 Mr Steiner said there was a crucial and urgent need to bring creative, forward-looking and ‘transformational thinking’ into next month’s Financing for Development Review Conference-taking place in Doha, Qatar.
 Other critical dates rapidly coming up in the international calendar include a proposed financial crisis summit of the G8+5, called for by French President Nicolas Sarkozy and the next round of UN climate convention negotiations in Poznan, Poland in December.
 “Transformative ideas need to be discussed and transformative decisions taken. The alternative is more boom and bust cycles; a climate-stressed world and a collapse of fish stocks and fertile soils up to forest ecosystems—vast, natural ‘utilities’ that for a fraction of the cost of machines store water and carbon, stabilize soils; sustain indigenous and rural livelihoods and harbor genetic resources to the value of trillions of dollars a year,” said Mr Steiner.
 
Hilary Benn, Secretary of State for the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, who held the launch, said, "The green technological revolution needs to gather pace, as more and more of the worlds jobs will in future be in environmental industries.

Britain is committed to building a green economy at home and abroad: it will be good for business good for the environment and good for development. UNEP's initiative will help make this change; in particular by helping us to understand just how much we depend on the environment - soil, air, water and biodiversity - for our very existence."

Current Economic Models: Short-Changing People and the Planet Pavan Sukdhev, a senior banker from Deutsche Bank who is seconded to UNEP to lead the research, said:” The economic models of the 20th century are now hitting the limits of what is possible—possible in terms of delivering better livelihoods for the 2.6 billion people still living on less than $2 a day and possible in terms of our ecological footprint”.

 “Investments will soon be pouring back into the global economy—the question is whether they go into the old, extractive, short-term economy of yesterday or a new green economy that will deal with multiple challenges while generating multiple economic opportunities for the poor and the well-off alike,” he said.
 The new report aims to help governments make better choices and send the right market signals to investors, entrepreneurs and consumers world-wide so “we move from mining the planet to managing and re-investing in it,” said Mr Steiner.

 The Green Economy Initiative, which has close to $4 million-worth of funding from the European Commission, Germany and Norway, builds in part on a request by the G8+5 group of nations two years ago.
 The G8+5 study on the Economics of Ecosystems and Biodiversity (TEEB), also led by Mr Sukhdev and funded by the European Commission and Germany, reported its Phase I findings in May at the UNEP-linked Convention on Biological Diversity meeting in Bonn.
 It highlighted the economic magnitude of “business –as-usual” losses, and drew strong links between ecosystem & biodiversity losses and the persistence of poverty.

The Green Economy initiative has three pillars—valuing and mainstreaming nature’s services into national and international accounts; employment generation through green jobs and the laying out the policies; instruments and market signals able to accelerate a transition to a Green Economy.

The strategy builds on the findings of TEEB while also linking with the Green Jobs Initiative of UNEP, the International Labour Organisation, the International Trades Union Confederation and the International Organization of Employers.
 The Green Economy Initiative will draw on the existing and considerable body of work generated by UNEP, the UN-system and others ranging from the impacts and opportunities of shifting fish, fuel and other subsidies up to innovative market mechanisms and financial products already triggering a transition.
 In 18 to 24 months it should deliver for governments—North and South-- a comprehensive assessment and tool kit for making the necessary transition.
 Erik Solheim, the Norwegian Environment Minister, said:” There are moments in history when an idea’s time has come—this is the case for a comprehensive Green Economy Initiative. Norway is delighted to be supporting this UNEP initiative. Innovative approaches and actions are needed in this very complex situation with a fundamental environmental crisis topped by an international financial situation out of control”.
 “I commend UNEP for responding so fast and timely -in particular how UNEP together with International Labour Organization (ILO) have demonstrated the huge untapped job potential in sustainable management of natural capital and nature based assets,” he added.
 Five Priority Sectors Underpinning a Global Green New Deal The five sectors likely to generate the biggest transition in terms of economic returns; environmental sustainability and job creation are:-

• Clean energy and clean technologies including recycling
  
  
• Rural energy, including renewables and sustainable biomass
  
  
• Sustainable agriculture, including organic agriculture
  
  
• Ecosystem Infrastructure
  

• Reduced Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation (REDD)

• Sustainable cities including planning, transportation and green building

He also often tells bad jokes as a finale to the story of how he and the lingerie producer Triumph developed an eatable bra -  not for erotic purposes, but to avoid poisoning skin or environment.

“It’s just like the Beatles song ’Obladi oblada, life goes on bra’, sings Mr. Braungart and smiles at his pun on the word bra. But don’t be misled. The funny professor has become a virtual environment guru since 1995, where he traveled around the world advocating for the so-called Cradle to Cradle product design. In the later years, he and designer William McDonough, have succeeded to start a smaller green revolution with this concept: Cradle to Cradle or C2C.

One of the largest clients is Ford that has spent nearly 2 billion USD on a new factory re- furbishing it with giant isolated windows that save huge amounts in electric lighting, adjacent wetlands that function as cleaner for wastewater, and grass on the roof that produces oxygen and cools the factory naturally.

Some Ford employees actually go to work earlier to observe birds grassing on the living roofs. Braungart & McDonough have also developed a new car model, the Ford U that drives on hydrogen and is leased to the customer for five years. After that the vehicle returns to the factory and is placed in a bath containing natural enzymes that will dissolve glue and other binding agents all of which return to the “cradle” in the factory and become a new vehicle with used doors, engines and other components.

Customers include BP, BASF, Electrolux, Lufthansa, Nike and Steelcase. Last year, Time Magazine announced Braungart & McDonough as Hero’s of the Environment and the little German’s philosophy has been exemplified as a best practice of implementation by the politically correct Hollywood icon Brad Pitt.

The Dutch Minister of Environment, Jacqueline Cramer, stated nearly a year ago that the government would implement C2C measures all over the country, and currently there are several Dutch cities engaged in the C2C vision about becoming waste-free. Even Chinese president Hu Jintao talks in the five-year pan of China for a C2C inspired transition to sustainable consumption and production and use of renewables and green materials. China is attracted to the decoupling of growth and pollution and considers it a win-win approach to combine economic growth with environmental protection, something Dr. Braungart himself used to rule out in the 1980s. At that time he founded the German party “Die Gruenen”, was eager Greenpeace activist and has lived in a tree for a couple of weeks. From being against consumption to advocate clever C2C consumption, Dr. Braungart has agreed that one has to start somewhere, with actual projects.

Government departments will also be required to develop their own plans for promoting energy efficiency and recycling, and stimulate investment in clean technologies.

Xinhua said that there were signs the government's climate change efforts were already working, citing official figures that show energy consumption for every 10,000 yuan of GDP fell 3.66 percent in 2007 to 1.16 tonnes of coal equivalent.

However, it also noted that the average energy use per unit of production for carbon intensive industries was still on average 20 percent higher than in developed economies.

The new legislation is likely to have a major impact on Western firms many of whom have exported their carbon intensive operations to China over the past two decades.

According to research from Carnegie Mellon University in the United States, a third of Chinese emissions are the direct result of the manufacture of products and services that are exported, primarily to Western markets.

If the people in response of the project are telling the truth, the future will belong to Phylla, an innovative Italian eco-car. The small car will be driven by electric power, and will be “ten times cheaper than a current fossil-fuel driven car”, says Nervio Di Gusto the man in charge of Fiat’s new development.

The development center of the Italian car manufacturer has coordinated the effort in concert with the polytechnic institute, the Turin chamber of commerce, the European Design Institute, the bio-energy producer Novamont as well as the provincial government of Piemont. The latter aided financing the project with around 1,2 million Euro.

The “multi-organic city-car”, as is the current description of the car, is still more of a mobile lab. The drive systems and components have not been identified as yet. However, one thing is for sure: The Phylla is going to be a carbon neutral vehicle propelled by an electric engine. It is planned to use either Lithium-Ion-Batteries (range 145 km), or Lithium-Polymer-Batteries (range 220km). It could also be a hydrogen powered engine or a small fuel cell that could generate the torque of the Phylla.

Regardless of engine choice, the Phylla will be equipped with Photovoltaics on the roof that will create the necessary electricity for the battery. On average, the developers estimate that the Phylla will be able to generate enough electricity from its solar power to drive between 12 and 18 kilometers. So for people who only use their cars to go and back from work, any expenses or fuel would be unnecessary.

In terms of operation, the Phylla can easily compete with other contemporary small cars. It takes six seconds to accelerate from 0 to 50 Km/h, and reaches a maximum speed of around 130 km/h. The flexibility of the concept is even more impressive. The car will have a very special architecture that allows a conversion of passenger compartment and chassis-frame into either a pick-up, small transporter, or a vehicle for disabled.

At present level of design and development, the Phylla will first be tested on the Casalle Airport of Turin. If all goes well during this testing , a series production of the vehicle could begin as soon as 2010. Due to the modular construction of the car, and the use of high-end manufacturing, the Phylla may become not only an innovative zero-emission car, but may also prove to be comparably cheap. All in all a combination that promises financial and environmental success.

Thai engineers will develop their own solar vehicle and send it to the United Nations climate change talks in Copenhagen next year, having been inspired by Louis Palmer, known as "Mr Solar Taxi".
Kasetsart University's (KU) president Vudtechai Kapila-kanchana said KU would fund its solar technologists to develop the solar taxi, worth around Bt400,000.
"Palmer invited us to join his solar car campaign in Copenhagen. We have accepted the invitation." Vudtechai said
"Technologically, we are ready to develop the solar taxi prototype and Palmer has agreed to support us," Nontawat Junjareon, dean of the Engineering Department, said.

If they succeed, Thailand will be among the first five countries to join his Copenhagen campaign, Palmer said. The other four are the United States, Australia, New Zealand and Singapore.

The Swiss-born Palmer is driving around the world without using a single drop of petrol. He reached Bangkok yesterday, halfway through his "Swiss Solar Taxi on World Tour". He started in July 2007.
"I want to tell the world that we can stop global warming and that solutions are available," Palmer said.
In 2004, he gave up his teaching career to design a solar vehicle and asked for help from experts as well as support from private companies.

He called his solar vehicle a 'taxi' as it has an extra seat for a passenger. Over 400 people had experienced a ride including the Prince of Jordan and Australian Environment Minister Peter Garrett. Palmer aims to have travel over 40,000 km through 40 countries in five continents to lecture 40,000 people on his world trip.
"Response along the way has been incredible, especially in Thailand," Palmer said.
"I hope I can make people realise that it is not technology that makes solar an option, but political will and public awareness," he added.
Today, Palmer will exhibit his solar taxi at Central World Plaza, in Bangkok.

By Kamol Sukin
Daily Xpress