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Join John Thorp as he discusses the challenges of climate change and the need for sustainable energy generation in different locations around the world. This lecture will explore the effects of climate change in Europe, Africa, and Australia, and highlight the importance of sustainable development for the future.
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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 6 – 9 pm Events Theatre Keyworth Building, Keyworth Street, London South Bank University This event is sponsored by the SOLAR ENERGY society www.uk-ises.org The Solar Energy Society, PO Box 489, Abingdon OX14 4WY, UK Tel: +44 (0) 7760163559, Fax: +44 1235 848684, E-mail: info@uk-ises.org www.uk-ises.org Location, Generation and Sustainability John Thorp, ecsc 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
“ 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
Location: One planet Where we are in the short term • natural disasters • increasingly severe weather events • economic losses
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
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
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
The Smart Generation • 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 • 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 • 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 non-fossil 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
Sustainable development • not a balancing act • not the lowest common denominator • not an equilibrium
The problem of growth It may not be too late! • 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
Location, Generation, Sustainability John Thorp Director ecsc