CLIMATE AND ENERGY OUTLOOK - Policy challenges and choices that will shape our common future - Main contents
| date | October 15, 2015 |
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| attending | (Fredrick) Federley i et al. |
| organisation | Friends of Europe |
With negotiations to seal the much hoped-for global climate agreement in their final leg, Friends of Europe’s 12th annual Climate and Energy Policy Summit will discuss the main challenges ahead for global leaders in view of ensuring affordable and secure energy in line with reducing CO2 emissions. Questions will include:
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-Will the new global climate agreement force businesses to shift their investment decisions?
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-What is the best way to finance the world’s low-carbon transition?
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-What new policies, technologies and actors will shake up the energy landscape in the years to come?
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-How different will the global energy-mix be in 2030 and where will gas, oil and coal fit into the low-carbon future?
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-What reforms are needed to fix Europe’s electricity market(s)?
This summit has a long-standing reputation as the ‘must-attend’ conference in Brussels and top-level personalities have always joined this platform as speakers. The few hundred participants will include EU and national policymakers, senior officials from international organisations, business representatives, NGO leaders, experts from the academic world and members of the international press from Brussels and throughout Europe.
You may follow the Climate and Energy Policy Summit on Twitter using #GreenerEU.
Related content
Podcasts
Session I - Financing the world’s low-carbon transition
Conversation with James Hansen
Session II - The energy landscape 15 years from now
Session III - Fixing Europe’s electricity market(s)
Subscribe to Friends of Europe’s podcast service on Itunes. Android users can download Podomatic app on GooglePlay and search for Friends of Europe.
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Videos
Session I - Financing the world’s low-carbon transition
Conversation with James Hansen
Session II - The energy landscape 15 years from now
Session III - Fixing Europe’s electricity market(s)
IMAGE CREDIT: CC / FLICKR - hijukal - Gary Chancey - arbyreed - The Danish Wind Industry Association - Pulpolux - IIP Photo Archive
Featuring
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UN Assistant Secretary-General on Climate Change - Janos Pasztor is the world’s leading figure in climate change and sustainable development. He joined the UN Secretary-General Executive Office in New York as the top climate adviser to Ban Ki-moon in the run-up to the Paris climate talks after taking a leave of absence from WWF International. During his longstanding career, he has held various senior positions in the UN, including within the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change and the United Nations Environment Programme. Most recently he served as Director of the UN Secretary-General’s Climate Change Support Team and Executive Secretary of the UN Secretary-General’s High-level Panel on Global Sustainability.
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US climate scientist and Head of NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies (1981-2013) - James Hansen is a leading world expert on climate change, one of Time Magazine's 100 Most Influential People (2006) and one of Foreign Policy's Top 100 Global Thinkers (2012). He is best known for his testimony on climate change made to the US congressional committee in 1988, which helped raise broad awareness of human-made global warming, and for his advocacy of action to avoid dangerous climate change - for which he decided to retire from NASA after 46 years of government service. He currently works as adjunct professor in the Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences at Columbia University.
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Luxembourg Minister for the Environment - Carole Dieschbourg has been Luxembourg’s Minister for the Environment since December 2013. In this role, she is responsible for defining and implementing the government's environmental and sustainable development policies. She assumed the rotating presidency of the EU Environment Council in July 2015, and among her priorities are a new circular economy proposal, reforming the EU ETS, reviewing the EU biodiversity strategy and an agreement on climate financing. She is also in charge of coordinating the EU’s position for the Paris Climate Change Conference (COP21) to be held this December.
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Director for Sustainable Energy Policy and Technology at the International Energy Agency (IEA) - With nearly 35 years of worldwide experience in the energy technology sector, Kamel Ben Naceur is a top figure on the global energy scene. He joined the IEA in September 2015 to lead efforts to modernise the Agency’s approach towards advanced energy technology and guide its outlooks. In 2014-15, he was Tunisia’s Minister of Industry, Energy and Mines, in charge of implementing the government’s reforms for those sectors, including energy subsidies rationalisation, the development of renewables and interconnections. He also worked for many years at Schlumberger as Senior Adviser, Vice President for Technology and Chief Economist.
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Senior Vice President for Strategy at the New Energy Solutions of Statoil - Sonja Chirico Indrebø’s career spans more than two decades in the global oil and gas industry. She joined Statoil in 1998 and is currently in charge of strategy and innovation in its new business area, established to drive profitable growth in renewable energy and other low-carbon solutions. Her previous leadership and technical positions in the company include Chief Information Officer and Vice-President for IT Services.
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Executive Director of FuelsEurope - John Cooper has extensive experience of the private energy sector. He worked for 27 years at BP, where he held several commercial, technical and policy leadership roles, most recently leading BP’s strategy for compliance with renewables and GHG regulation in European transport fuels. In April 2015, he was appointed Director General of FuelsEurope and Concawe, representing the interest of 42 companies operating refineries in the EU.
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Chairwoman of the Belgian National Regulatory Authority for Energy (CREG) - Marie-Pierre Fauconnier is Chairwoman of the Belgian Commission for the Regulation of Electricity and Gas, Vice President of the Council of European Energy Regulators (CEER) and represents Belgium at the Agency for the Cooperation of Energy Regulators (ACER). She was formerly Director General for Energy at the Belgian Ministry for Economy and Chairwoman of the Governing Board of the International Energy Agency (2009-2013).
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Member of the European Parliament Committee on Industry, Research and Energy and Substitute of the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Food Safety - Fredrick Federley is a Swedish politician and former member of the Swedish Parliament (2006-2014). He joined the European Parliament in 2014 as the Alliance for Liberals and Democrats for Europe Group (ALDE) coordinator in the ITRE Committee. His parliamentary activities have covered different topics such as green employment, the circular economy and energy security issues.
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Head of Europe, Middle East & Africa at Bloomberg New Energy Finance (BNEF) - Seb Henbest is a well-known expert in energy economics, and writes extensively on clean energy and carbon market politics. In his current position as head of EMEA, he oversees BNEF’s European power, carbon market and energy smart technologies analysis, as well as the development of the firm’s European business. He previously led Bloomberg New Energy Finance’s Cross-Sector Research and established the company’s Sydney office.
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Head of EU Strategy in the Public Affairs Division at Electricité de France (EDF) - Michel Matheu worked for nearly 15 years in the field of the economy, regulation of electricity systems and public affairs at Electricité de France (EDF), a French utility company and the world’s largest producer of electricity. Prior to joining EDF, he was Head of the Department in charge of Public Utilities and Environment at the Planning Office, an advisory body to the French Prime Minister.
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Senior Associate at Third Generation Environmentalism (E3G) - Simon Skillings has more than 30 years’ experience working in the energy industry. In 2007, he established his own energy consulting company, Trilemma UK Ltd., to provide advice to private companies and policymakers on a wide variety of regulatory, policy or strategic issues affecting UK and European energy markets. He was the lead author of the European Climate Foundation’s 'Power Perspectives 2030' and 'From Roadmaps to Reality' reports, and was a board member of the UK Business Council for Sustainable Energy.
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Director of BlackRock Infrastructure Investment Group within BlackRock Alternative Investors (BAI) - Alan Synnott joined BlackRock, the world’s largest asset management firm providing guidance to institutional and individual investors around the world, to establish its renewable power infrastructure business. He is also Advisor to the Global Innovation Lab for Climate Finance, a global initiative that aims to drive private investment into climate change mitigation and adaption projects in developing countries.
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Vice President for Climate and Environment at the European Investment Bank (EIB) - Jonathan Taylor has been a Vice President of the European Investment Bank since January 2013, leading the Bank’s work in climate action and other environmental lending schemes. He is also a member of the EIB’s Management Committee, which draws up the Bank’s financial and lending policies, oversees its day-to-day business, and takes collective responsibility for the Bank’s performance.
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European Commission Director for Energy Policy - In her current position, Mechthild Wörsdörfer’s main responsibilities include the development of the general energy strategy and monitoring of energy policy, international relations and economic analysis. Prior to joining the Directorate General for Energy in 2010, she pursued a long career in the DG Enterprise and Industry in charge of SMEs competitiveness.
Programme
08.30 - 09.00 Welcome coffee and registration of participants
09.00 - 10.00 - Session I - Financing the world’s low-carbon transition
Now that the preparatory negotiations for the UN Paris conference are entering their final stages, attention is turning to financing the low-carbon transition without imposing unnecessary costs on private and business consumers and without endangering different countries’ energy security. The International Energy Agency has put the world’s total energy supply and energy efficiency investment needs by 2035 at a massive $53tn if the 2oC climate change target is to be met, a third of that amount needed to finance the development of low-carbon technologies. Yet so far there are few signs that today’s policies and market signals will make the existing energy investment trends more sustainable with the necessary speed and scale. Will the new global climate agreement force businesses to shift their investment decisions? What is the outlook for the fossil fuel divestment movement and would it necessarily lead to increased investment in clean energy? Which policies, ranging from emissions trading to taxation or subsidising energy sources, have proved most effective in leveraging private sector low-carbon investment? What innovative financing mechanisms and business models, such as green bonds or yieldcos, could help tap new sources of capital? How can industrialised countries work with less developed ones to embrace sustainable growth and shift away from the most carbon-intensive energy sources? And how should the new Paris agreement be to allay competitiveness concerns, should it aim for truly international solutions, like the linking of carbon markets or a global carbon tax?
Featuring
Carole Dieschbourg / Luxembourg Minister for the Environment
Janos Pasztor / UN Assistant Secretary-General on Climate Change
Alan Synnott / Director of BlackRock Infrastructure Investment Group within BlackRock Alternative Investors (BAI)
Jonathan Taylor / Vice President for Climate and Environment at the European Investment Bank (EIB)
Moderated by
Shada Islam / Director of Policy at Friends of Europe
10.00 - 10.30 Coffee break
10.30 - 11.00 Conversation with James Hansen / Top US climate scientist and head of NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies (1981-2013)
Moderated by
Shada Islam / Director of Policy at Friends of Europe
11.00 - 12.00 - Session II - The energy landscape 15 years from now
The ongoing shifts in geostrategic power balances, successive revolutions in energy supply-and-demand, and volatile energy prices that are turning energy markets into casinos, are making the future course of energy markets hard to predict. But whatever the future holds, technological advances in the energy sector, combined with the political momentum for climate change, are certain to shake up the energy landscape as we know it today. What policies and which countries will drive global innovation in the energy sector, and where will Europe fit into this race? What new and unsuspected business actors could emerge, perhaps to take the lead? What disruptive technologies are likely to have the greatest impact on the world energy picture, and what elements will alter the competitive environment over the next 15 years? With electricity storage and battery technologies widely seen as imminent game-changers, what breakthroughs should be expected in the power and transport sectors? How different will the global energy mix be in 2030, and where will gas, oil and coal fit into the low-carbon future that is becoming a global goal? What are the unintended but potentially adverse consequences that switching to renewable energy sources and ’green’ technologies might bring; can it lead to a new minerals import dependency trap? And how could the current deadlocks barring the way to greater energy efficiency be overcome?
Featuring
Kamel Ben Naceur / Director for Sustainable Energy Policy and Technology at the International Energy Agency (IEA) and former Tunisia Minister for Industry, Energy and Mines
Sonja Chirico Indrebø / Senior Vice President for Strategy at the New Energy Solutions of Statoil
John Cooper / Executive Director of FuelsEurope
Seb Henbest / Head of Europe, Middle East & Africa at Bloomberg New Energy Finance (BNEF)
Co-moderated by
Shada Islam / Director of Policy at Friends of Europe
Siobhan Hall / Senior Editor for EU energy policy at Platts
12.00 - 12.30 Coffee break
12.30 - 13.30 - Session III - Fixing Europe’s electricity market(s)
Europe’s electricity sector urgently needs to be redesigned. The EU’s self-imposed deadline for completing the internal energy market expired last year, leaving Europe still with 28 electricity markets that are fragmented by divergent national energy policies, not properly connected to their neighbours and hit by weak competition. Consumers have too little control over their energy use, and Europe’s energy infrastructure, meanwhile, is ageing and has not been adequately adapted to the low-carbon transition. Mismatches between power shortages and oversupply, together with continuing regulatory uncertainties, mean there has been an EU-wide standstill in vitally important energy investment. What reforms are now needed to fix these problems and why are the policies that could provide the right price signals to encourage the necessary investment still lacking? What new market design would enable the integration of low-carbon generation technologies? How should policymakers secure generation adequacy while ensuring that markets and fair competition are not distorted and that heavier financial burdens aren’t placed on consumers? Is there a need for capacity mechanisms, or can security of supply be reached through cross-border interconnectivity, trading arrangements and storage capacity? How best can the EU’s 15% interconnection target be met and will it end up with ‘energy islands’? How can consumers be empowered to manage their energy use? Where is the EU’s Energy Union now heading, and how can it be used to encourage a greater coordination of national energy strategies?
Featuring
Marie-Pierre Fauconnier / Chairwoman of the Belgian National Regulatory Authority for Energy (CREG)
Fredrick Federley MEP / Member of the European Parliament Committee on Industry, Research and Energy and Substitute of the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Food Safety
Michel Matheu / Head of EU Strategy at Electricité de France (EDF)
Simon Skillings / Senior Associate at Third Generation Environmentalism (E3G)
Mechthild Wörsdörfer / European Commission Director for Energy Policy
Co-moderated by
Shada Islam / Director of Policy at Friends of Europe
Siobhan Hall / Senior Editor for EU energy policy at Platts
13.30 End of the summit
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