World Energy Council: Keys to growth

MONTREAL, Sept. 17 (UPI) -- National energy policies and international cooperation are necessary for sustainable growth in the energy sector, the chairman of the World Energy Council said.

"The global crises have proved the market alone cannot solve our problems," said Pierre Gadonneix, during his concluding speech Thursday at the conference attended by some 3,500 energy industry leaders and government officials from 100 countries.

"We must find a new balance between market and regulation," said Gadonneix, who is also honorary chairman of Electricite de France.

To achieve sustainable growth, he said, the industry must address three key issues: security of supply; environmental protection and climate change; and "energy poverty" resulting from inequality within countries and across the globe that sees 2 billion people without adequate sources of energy.

While competitive technologies do exist, development is needed in the area of nuclear power, carbon capture and storage, photovoltaic technologies, electricity storage and sustainable bio-fuels, Gadonneix said.

In his address Wednesday to the conference, former U.N. chief climate negotiator Yvo de Boer said global leaders should focus less on overall emissions targets and more on practical measures such as specific rules for businesses to invest in a lower carbon future.

"What we need now is clear policy guidance from governments to business, including market-based mechanisms," said de Boer, who served as executive secretary of the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change and is now an adviser with KPMG International.

Delegates from around the world met last December in Copenhagen, Denmark, to draft a treaty to replace the expiring Kyoto Protocol but failed to reach a global agreement.

The United Nations will try again to achieve an agreement during the next climate change summit in Cancun, Mexico, in December.

In an interview on the sidelines of the World Energy Council conference, the Energy Collective asked de Boer if climate negotiations through smaller groupings of countries might produce better results in Cancun.

"If coming to grips with climate change were only about reducing emissions," he said, "then it would make a lot of sense to just bring the 20 or so major economies of the world together in a room and get them to focus on emissions reduction."

But, de Boer stressed, a larger group of countries must be involved in the process because there are some 100 countries that "did absolutely nothing to contribute to climate change, but will be confronted with the bulk of the impacts.