REVIEW SESSION
OVERALL CONGRESS REVIEW SESSION
Questions and Answers
Mr. Kieran O´Brien
Thank you very much indeed, Tony. We have almost half an hour for an introductory session; the mics are on the floor. I would encourage as much interaction as possible. Please address the question to the speaker to whom you wish to address the question to. I would ask you to keep it short to facilitate our translators but I would very much encourage questions. I wonder if we could have the lights up a little bit please so that we might be able to see.
We have a question here from Mr. Brendow.
Mr. Brendow
Thank you very much Mr. Chairman, my question is very simple. This morning in your presentations I did not hear any reference to security of energy supplies. Does that mean there is no problem or does it mean we haven’t addressed this problem? I think that in the new context that we are living a word should be pronounced by the Congress on energy security worldwide. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Brandt
Well, the point Klaus is making is very relevant. In the draft conclusions and recommendations that we will be reviewing later in the Executive Assembly there is in fact a point under a section called “Energy Challenges”, we just went through a few of the basic conclusions that stresses the issue of energy security and political and legal stability.
Mr. O´Brien
Thank you very much indeed. I think, I would like to stress that energy security is indeed considered in detail in our conclusions and recommendations. Clearly Mr. Del Rosario did not have time to go through all the issues we proposed to cover in those recommendations.
Thank you Mr Chairman. My name is Jan-Erik Moreau from the Swedish State Union Confederation. I have a very short question to the panel: what do you recommend to the consumers to do in the new market? Thank you.
Thank you indeed for your brevity.
Mr. Bernot
I suppose that we are all consumers in the end analysis, and so as consumers we can all make ourselves heard in terms of what kind of energy we want to be supplied to us. So if we use it wastefully and inefficiently we are giving a signal to the supplier. If we are prepared to pay a very high price and don’t do anything in terms of helping introduce competition so there is a better way of, a better choice to us as consumers, I am speaking now with the consumer hat on, then I suppose there are responses consumers can do.
In our individual case that might not be possible always to be as effective as one would like but I think we may need not to look at it in the context of confrontation, I think a consumer whether an individual, a country or a region, needs to think in terms of this may be the first problem of security of supply. I recall that many years ago we, ourselves, had to face the problem of security of supplies and the prices that were applicable to this supply of energy, and it seems to me that some of the best responses to this kind of problem, is that if there are energy resources widely distributed in the world but not developed, then clearly that reduces the availability of energy to the consumers.
On the other hand, if the consumer is not prepared to pay a full and fair price for the cost of it being brought to him, then he, or the country or the region is also bringing the kind of problem that creates shortage of energy supply to the market. So there must be a balance somewhere so that there is a state that each of us have and if we can move forward together, then I think it is a clear way of helping first of all security reliability of supply and secondly maybe as we go along more plentiful supplies so ultimately the price that comes to us as consumers become what is realistic and fair to both sides. I hope that answers your question.
Mr. O´Brien
I might also mention that in most western democracies consumers are also voters and they do have, I guess, the ultimate sanction in relation to government policies, which are so critical in our energy industries. Now, maybe I could ask if people would line up next to the mic so it would make it a little quicker. Please go ahead.
Mr. President, I think there’s a point that hasn’t been emphasised in the conclusions. Half of the humanity lives in Asia and there the nuclear energy has had a reverse process. We have to have the guts to tell humanity that nuclear energy is a real alternative to contamination, to CO2 contamination, and this is a very important conclusion in this Congress. It is the first time I have seen this kind of presentation and hasn’t been emphasised. Please take that into a count.
Mr. O´Brien
Thank you very much indeed. I think we have made it very clear, something I hope I did in my opening address that keeping all options open was absolutely critical for the world’s energy supply and we have indeed stressed it out very strongly in our conclusions.
Mr. Del Rosario
I think I would like to echo what has been said by both Kieran and Roberto. Certainly, the bullet points we have made reflect clearly the perception that there is an alternative that each one of us in our own respective situation as countries or regions can consider, and in fact is being considered as a serious response to their own specific energy situation in the case for example of Japan, when in a Mr Ota's presentation they were speaking about security of supply, the need to ensure that they have a balanced and diversified sourcing and nuclear energy is clearly one of them and I am sure it is also the case in a number of other countries. So there are many dimensions to it but the truth is that it is being recognized, maybe there are some problems that we need to recognize as well, and they should be addressed and I guess what Nathan has just suggested that there is a need to have more education about energy and the place of energy in sustainable development needs to be better understood. Thank you.
I am Sandro Clerici, I am the chairman of the Italian WEC and I had the honour yesterday to chair the round table on R&D. I would like to pose 2 questions or underline 2 points. One, on R&D, just the clear effect of globalisation, liberalisation and privatisation is a fierce competition, the disappearance of local manufacturing groups, the so-called national champion, the change of national policies on R&D and there is concern of the major industrial companies and all the companies coming out from the liberalisation process, the previous utilities, on cost reduction shorter. In addition almost all the companies are confining their value on the stock value, just giving out more messages to emphasise what they would like to do and that is more important to show than perhaps to perform, to have to act. In this context there is a strong reduction on something that is keeping up their survival. So the first question is what are we doing to come out for that? The energy development must count on long-term research, so we have to give a clear message to the politicians that they have to agree something and that this cannot be done anymore on a national basis, so I would like to ask WEC what are we thinking to do to involve the government, the GA or someone in this crucial problem?
Second, the education. The changing environment is creating clearly a new approach, we must act as pioneers. The decision-making and the decision-taking process must be taken instead adapting this steps to the changing objectives, so in the education we have to complete change, more than technical people we need people that are able to survive to continuous learn for what is going on to take care of the mistakes and to use them as a starting point. Here also I am saying: we have to do something, what we do think, because it’s a completely new way of approach in taking care of the new environment.
Thank you very much indeed. I’m going to take the 2nd question first, maybe I'll ask Mr. Bernot to respond to the 2nd question.
Mr. Bernot
This is a very important point, and today in energy use is so many things changing all the time so fast, that we should use such occurrences like this Congress to digest many new ideas which were presented during the contributions of different papers and discussions, and to bring the discussions to the general public on an efficient way, not just trying to put it into 2 or 3 or 10 points, but we should organise the educational process on efficient energy use as a close cycle from the energy industry to the energy users which are now, let me say now as an example, in our country we are a small country, Slovenia in Europe, 2 million people and we have actually one energy supplier and 8 thousand eligible customers without any knowledge of how to buy it. That’s the case we are facing today even in this Congress. Thank you.
Mr. Brandt perhaps you would take question 1?
Mr. Brandt
Just very briefly. I highlighted in my intervention the same concern in terms of insufficient resources being allocated to R&D. In terms of what can be done, I think we can split it into 2 dimensions. Out of this forum we can, as we are doing, insist on calling on decision-makers to recognise this problem and have a change in policies and priorities both at the governmental and corporate levels. At the decision-making dimension, I think there are a few examples in countries, where synergy between governments and corporations, universities and corporations, research centres and corporations, even within this context of liberalisation, privatisation, that Alessandro was mentioning, can pay out and can give good results so it is basically an effort to optimise existing resources to have better results, and as I said at the beginning to also draw more resources for these purposes. Thank you.
Thank you, Roberto. I guess just as a closing remark on that question that there is a view that globalisation will efficiently allocate our end-use resources but within a market for allocating capital and the question is, is this market reliable or are we contemplating a market failure over the long term, and that question has been raised, whether there is a necessity to intervene to ensure that market operates correctly in terms of long term R&D investment.
My name is Hans Kleijn from the Netherlands. My question refers to the internalisation of most of the energy companies. Could the panel include a remark on the cross boarder responsibilities that it carries for the energy companies.
Thank you very much Mr. Kleijn. I do know that the issue of regional development rather than development necessarily bounded by national frontiers has been raised in the conclusions and recommendations. Tony, would you like to maybe expand a little bit on that?
Mr. Del Rosario
I think that’s a very good question, and of course there are 2 elements in terms of the search for, the linking of countries by specific programs of infrastructure to do so, and clearly cooperative arrangements between governments must underlie many of the acts that need to be done ultimately with the assistance of private sector, so that’s one element.
The other one is of course, the growth of mega corporations, and this is where they can perform a unique function because very large massive capital resources will be needed to be able to pursue and bring this kind of projects to fruition, and you can see many examples of it. Even in Latin America, between Bolivia and Brazil, there is a convergence of need and supply of the natural gas that has been discovered in Bolivia, so there’s one element and infrastructure is coming up in the process of doing so. I wouldn’t be surprised that as that and other similar projects are about, there will be active participation by private sector in many aspects of the project, beginning with the technology necessary to do so and certainly on the part of the government helping provide the markets that will make it possible for such resources to be linked together.
Roberto, please.
Mr. Brandt
Thank you. Very briefly, as Tony said it’s not only covered but it’s also interrelated to the regulatory institutional issues and there is where we sometimes have dissymmetries between the cross boarder responsibilities or initiatives of corporations and the harmonisation of national regulation, again Latin America is a very good example of this, where business is going faster than regulations in certain aspects.
Thank you very much. Irene Froidenshus. I was the chairperson of one of the energy negotiations at the Commission on sustainable development this spring in New York. I was very heartened at the strong emphasis on sustainable development in the proceedings of this Congress, and I would simply like to raise the question: what is the WEC intending to do to keep energy very visible and to make the energy very visible when the international community gathers in Johannesburg in September 2002 in order to review the progress made since Rio or the lack of progress made since Rio? You all know that energy was not specifically incorporated in the agenda 2001, but when we come to Johannesburg it will be very important that the contribution that energy makes to sustainable development is given a very good visibility, and I think the WEC is very well placed to exactly do that. So it’s a question and an encouragement to be very active in this context to the WEC. Thank you.
Mr. O´Brien
Thank you very much indeed. I think you certainly put your finger on an excellent point coming on in this congress, communication and interaction with other the players and other sectors are coming more and more critical for the WEC, and more and more WEC has been asked to play an important role in this area. Certainly, WEC is looking forward to a participation in South Africa. The details of this, if the Secretary General wishes to comment on it I’d be very happy to have him comment on it in relation to South Africa. Please, Gerald.
Mr. Gerald Doucet
Mr. Chairman. The World Energy Council is one of the partners in the business action committee on sustainable development with the International Chamber of Commerce and the world business council on sustainable development. We are preparing position papers, we are also producing a special new paper updating our work on drivers of the energy scene, which will be completed by next summer, and if the officers of WEC agree on behalf of the Executive Assembly we will be making not only a submission but the incoming Chairman, Antonio del Rosario, and I will participate directly in that meeting.
Thank you very much indeed, Gerald. I’m going to take just a final few questions at this microphone here, please.
Thank you Mr. Chairman. My name is Abdhala Lalau from Syria. My question is to Mr del Rosario, chairman elected. We have been talking since years about the poor of the world and that there are still 2 billion people without access to electricity and more than 1.6 billion without access to commercial energy. So far nothing serious has been done to solve this problem. All technologies we hear here they are talking are for evolved parts of the world. Expensive technologies and some new ideas for the future. Indeed, it is time to think of having a specific congress for that part of the world, for that people. Availability and accessibility should be put at the forefront the poor. Thank you.
Thank you very much indeed. I’m not sure about the idea of a specific congress but certainly the support for that and I’m sure it is something that ultimately could be built into the future WEC programme. I’m not sure, Tony, have you much to add to that statement?
Mr. Del Rosario
Coming from the developing world myself I echo your sentiments, and seeing the growth of the world population, soon we will be, I understand about 6.1 billion people and we are seeing about 2 billion. I have been hearing this for the last few years, so it looks like even though the ratio of the total population of people, who are connected to a commercial energy, seems to be improving. The number still is static, so your statement clearly calls for the need to focus on this, but it is a task that is not only ours in the energy area I believe that you will agree that a full economic development is fundamental to help in solving the problem, but there is a responsibility we need to face. I think there are many kinds of technologies; most of these are addressed to the needs of those of us who consume more. I think that those of us who consume less need to be able to look at better tools, better technologies if you like, that need not be expensive but more regularly available to them so they can go up the ladder of improving access to energy. Thank you.
Thank you very much, Tony. I have 2 final questions here.
I am Santaholma, from Finnish Energy Industries Federation, I’m also chairing the Energy Commission of the International Chamber of Commerce, ICC. ICC is one of the observer organisations present here. Let me congratulate the WEC and the Argentinean programme committee for excellent conference including technical programme. I share the views of Gerald Doucet from the side of ICC in relation to the civil actions together with sustainable development towards the Johannesburg World Summit. Mr. Chairman, one intervention concerning the puzzle put forward by Roberto Brandt mainly in environment. Sustainability is present in all the development and decision making in today’s society. Sustainability includes 3 pillars: 1st economic and technical responsibility, 2nd social responsibility and 3rd environmental responsibility.