The Big Apple is ready to fight global warming and climate change. One of the first measures in this fight as announced by Mayor Michael Bloomberg will be the replacing of the gas-guzzling yellow taxicabs by environmentally friendly hybrid cars.

The program will be finished within five years. Bloomberg said the fleet of roughly 1,200 Crown Victoria taxis that are painted yellow, will be gradually replaced with the new cars. The Crown Victoria taxis make up about 90 per cent of taxicabs in the city.
The “green� taxis will run on a combination of gasoline and electricity to double their fuel efficiency.

"There's an awful lot of taxicabs on the streets of New York City obviously, so it makes a real big difference," Bloomberg said. "These cars just sit there in traffic sometimes, belching fumes. This does a lot less. It's a lot better for all of us."

He said his programmes to fight climate change would make the city one of the most environmentally friendly place in the world. The city's current population of 8 million people is projected to grow by 900,000 in the next 20 years.

The city has been experimenting with hybrid cars in the last two years and some 400 vehicles manufactured by Toyota and Ford are now operating. Bloomberg's programme calls for 1,000 hybrid taxis by 2008 and will increase by 20 per cent every year until 2012.