By Hans Nilsson / Published on Mon, 2008-07-14 05:00
Maybe Shakespeare was prophetic when he wrote his play "Much ado about nothing", because this seems to be what happened in Japan last week when the G8-leaders were deciding upon energy and climate. Almost deciding, at least. A careful reading of the communiqué shows that there are some openings in the text (item 24) for the leadership to act upon and that coincides with the view expressed by Tony Blair earlier. There is also a recognition of the importance of energy efficiency to achieve energy security (item 13). If we were to be nice, we could say that awareness is there, but political will is not.
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By Bruno De Wachter / Published on Mon, 2007-07-30 07:30
Offering an opening for a global agreement
According to James Griffin, a journalist from the Issue Alert news website, the recent June G8 summit in Heiligendamm provided a breakthrough.
He points at a statement hidden away in the middle of the final announcement: 'We acknowledge that the United Nations (UN) climate process is the appropriate forum for negotiating future global action on climate change. We are committed to moving forward in that forum and call on all parties to actively and constructively participate in the UN Climate Change Conference in Indonesia (Bali) in December 2007 with a view to achieving a comprehensive post-2012 agreement (post-Kyoto agreement) that should include all major emitters.'
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By Hans Nilsson / Published on Tue, 2007-06-05 07:00
...but how significant will it be for the future? It is obvious that the temperature has risen since their meeting in Gleneagles and expectations are quite high before the process then started, and that will be reported next year in Japan. The agenda is (presently) totally opaque.
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By Hans Nilsson / Published on Tue, 2006-07-18 06:37
We have got used to over the short period of about a year that strategic energy issues are tackled beginning with the need to be more energy efficient thereby reducing the need to supply. This insight, however simple, obvious and natural as it is, has certainly been a new attitude from world leaders and we got used to it quickly. The running up to the G8 meeting however shows that not all in the "entourage" of the world leaders has yet reached this level of wisdom.
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By Hans Nilsson / Published on Fri, 2006-07-14 06:54
Tomorrow July 15 the G8 summit begins and it has energy security as the number 1 item on their agenda. But apart from that, the topics seem to be very mixed. Basically there is the concern about the Russian gas and the fact that Russia (and Gazprom) has such a strong position in all Europe (see Le Monde July 5: "Gazprom Le bras armé du Kremlin").
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By Hans Nilsson / Published on Fri, 2006-05-12 05:19
Would that really be possible? The proposal comes from the chairman of Green Cross International, Mikhail Gorbachev, who challenges the G8-countries to put up 45 Billion Euro to make it happen. And one of his arguments is to show how the nuclear industry in the past has received much bigger support. But the issue is, would it be feasible? And the answer is, probably. Consider the following: The larning rate for PV is 20%, i.e. by each doubling of the installed power in the world the cost drops by 20%.
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By Hans Nilsson / Published on Tue, 2006-03-28 05:17
Much ado about nothing or yet another step towards a European energy policy?
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By Hans De Keulenaer / Published on Wed, 2005-07-20 09:35
Among the many media stories, it's difficult to find the real outcome of the G8 summit on Climite Change, Clean Energy and Sustainable Development. In 'Further reading' you will find the G8 Action plan and the Communiqué.
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