Transcript Energy Policy and Schools - The UK Solar Energy Society

DAVID HALL
MEMORIAL LECTURE 2006
Location, Generation and Sustainability
John Thorp MBA FEI FRSA
Chair, UK-ISES
Director, Energy Centre for Sustainable Communities (ecsc)
Thursday, 7 December 2006
DAVID HALL
MEMORIAL LECTURE 2006
John Thorp
Location, Generation and
Sustainability
Location, Generation
Sustainability
John Thorp MBA CBiol FEI FRSA
Chairman
UK-ISES
Plan
The EU
 Climate change effects in Europe
 Climate interactions
 USA
 Africa
 Australia
 Generation
 Sustainability
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“ Europeans face many challenges in the
coming decades. Our children and their
children will have to live with the effects of
climate change.
Andris Piebalgs
European Commissioner for Energy
The EU
EU has committed itself to play a global
leadership role in the fight against
global warming
 climate change is still seen as an
environmental issue
 EU-15 member states have a hard time
delivering their own Kyoto commitments
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Effects in Europe
Climate Interactions
Location: One planet
Where we are in the short term
natural disasters
 increasingly severe weather events
 economic losses
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US Drought
Drought in Africa
Location: Africa
warming is greatest over the interior
 30 per cent of Africa's coastal
development could disappear
 a continent of more than 800 million
people with up to 70 million people at
risk
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Climate Canaries
Kenya's herdsmen are facing extinction
 way of life has sustained them for
thousands of years
 As government ministers sit down in
Nairobi at UN Climate Conferences, the
people most likely to be wiped out by
devastating global warming will be only
a few hundred miles away
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Location: Australia
emits almost as much carbon and other
greenhouse gases as France and Italy
combined
 each have three times its population.
 many regions in their fifth year of
drought
 lowest wheat crop for 12 years

Generation
energy sources are often long distances
from the point of consumption.
 improving energy efficiency and the use
of renewables is a priority for energy
policy
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The Smart Generation
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we have a unique opportunity to create a new
generation of energy smart citizens.
new technologies will have little effect if users
cannot be convinced to use them
long term change in human behaviour has to
be driven by increasing awareness of the
benefits
we all have a strategic role in improving our
responses to climate change
Sustainability
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effective cultural solutions to environmental
problems.
an understanding of the dimensions of the problems
our policies should:
– reflect the role of energy in modern life
– re-develop a societal and business empathy
Sustainability
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Brundtland defined sustainable development
economic opportunities
foundations of the economy
Biological systems provide everything in our
economy that is not provided by fossil fuels and nonfossil minerals
maintaining the fundamental environmental
conditions for civilisation itself.
Stern review
three elements of policy are required for
an effective response: carbon pricing,
technology policy and energy efficiency
 climate change should be fully
integrated into development policy
 new crop varieties that will be more
resilient to drought and flood
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Sustainable development
not a balancing act
 not the lowest common denominator
 not an equilibrium
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The problem of growth
It may not be too late!
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Intelligent growth
Unique opportunities
 identify what society and individuals can do
 raise awareness of the issues and their
background and
 explain the benefits of that action, but do not
forget to………….
 provide the platform
One Planet
Location, Generation,
Sustainability
John Thorp
Director
ecsc