Prince Albert of Monaco wants to make F1 green

BARCELONA, Spain (Reuters) - Prince Albert of Monaco wants Grand Prix cars to run entirely on biofuels in a shift he says will help the sport's image and limit greenhouse gas emissions from his Mediterranean principality.

He also told Reuters that royal families around the world were getting more involved in urging citizens to do more to combat climate change, partly because the scientific findings underpinning global warming had become so robust.

"Everyone can play a part; that's the important message," he said of the drive to slow global warming and avert feared heatwaves, floods, droughts and rising seas.

"Formula One will have to come to alternative energies in the near future," he said on the sidelines of a International Union for Conservation of Nature conference in Barcelona.

"If they are going to have to maintain some level of credibility, then they will have to keep up with ongoing trends" toward cleaner energies, he said of Formula One racing. The cars can now burn close to a liter of fossil fuel per kilometer.

Asked if he wanted the engines to run completely on alternative fuels, he said: "that's the aim, it will take some time but I'm sure we will get to that."

He said people sometimes asked him when he urged more action on climate change: "how can you speak about these issues when you have a Formula One race in your back yard?" The Monaco Grand Prix winds through the 0.76 sq mile principality.

Formula One organizers should take on a "leadership role" to transform cars, he said. From 2008, at least 5.75 percent of all fuel used in Formula One must be from biological matter.

The sport's governing body said in July that the sport was "becoming unsustainable" and asked teams to come up with new rules to slash costs and halve fuel consumption by 2015.

On Grand Prix days, Monaco felt it was doing its part by restricting car parking in a shift that means that 80 percent of spectators arrive by train. "So that's worked quite well," Prince Albert said.

ELECTRIC BIKES

The Prince, aged 50, said that Monaco was making steps to cut pollution -- it has cut greenhouse gas emissions by eight percent since 1990 and has taken measures such as planting 340,000 trees to help protect the environment.

The Prince was named a "Champion of the Earth" by the U.N. Environment Programme this year. It said Monaco was "applying an exemplary policy on carbon dioxide reduction in every sphere of society."

Among measures, Monaco was making electric-power bicycles available in parking garages. "Why electric bikes? Monaco...is very hilly. This is the appropriate method of transport for Monaco," he said.

The principality, of 32,000 people, had also encouraged the use of car pooling, with 750 people using it every day. The principality's workforce has risen by 2,000 in recent years.

Asked if millionaires living by the Riviera were affected by incentives such as wider use of bicycles, trains or Monaco's tax breaks to install solar panels, he said:

"It's all a question of making it sound economically attractive. If the incentive is there I don't see why people should not move."

He said that royal families had often focused in the past on humanitarian issues but were now also shifting to the environment and climate change.

"More and more they are also learning of environmental issues. Everybody in a position of leadership, different actors in society, every citizen has to get involved. Everyone can play a part."

"Maybe they (Royal families) were holding back for different reasons. I think one mainly is that of insufficient or incomplete evidence." But he said that the evidence was now "irrefutable."

(Editing by Paul Casciato,