Yesterday, a caravan of hydrogen cars decided to take a little road trip from Sweden to Copenhagen, Denmark ahead of the start of the COP15 United Nations Climate Change Conference 2009 that starts on December 7th. The 27-mile hydrogen car parade was intended to make an impact not only at the COP15 summit but also to highlight the Scandinavian Hydrogen Highway project.
The cars in the convoy included the Honda FCX Clarity, TH!NK Hydrogen Car, GM HydroGen4, the Fiat Panda Hydrogen, and the Mercedes B-class F-CELL. The hydrogen cars made the trip from Malmo, Sweden to Copenhagen where they refueled at the new H2 fueling station just opened this past November 12.
I’ve talked recently about the linking of Scandinavia to mainland Europe through Denmark and how Germany is at the forefront of building a hydrogen infrastructure inside of that country. This so-called “Bridge to Hydrogen” caravan was organized by the European Hydrogen Association.
Another organization hoping to make a bridge to hydrogen is the PATH (Partnership for Advancing the Transition to Hydrogen) at hpath.org. According to a PATH press release, “…a coalition of 16 associations from around the world issued a joint statement to underscore how hydrogen technologies can help to curb global greenhouse gas emissions. The statement, addressed to the Executive Secretary of the United Nations Framework on Climate Change, Yvo de Boer, points out many significant benefits to the environment and other areas including the elimination of 80-percent of the emissions from light duty vehicles, according to studies by Japan, the European Union and United States.”
In future conferences, I would like to see not only caravans of hydrogen cars carrying participants, but those same participants boarding hydrogen buses and hydrail trains as well. But, as Bill Murray said in the movie “What About Bob?” it will take “baby steps” at this point in time and we’ll get there eventually.