A detailed account of the Energy Transition Forum organized by IENE on June 6 and 7 in the Austrian capital has just been released and added to the contents of the event’s microsite. Unlike other events with similar theme and orientation, the focus of IENE’s Vienna Energy Transition Forum was not one sided, as is often the case when the whole discussion ends up being an eulogy for renewables and the need for temperature rise containment to so many degrees.A detailed account of the Energy Transition Forum organized
by IENE on June 6 and 7 in the Austrian capital has just been released and added
to the contents of the event’s microsite. Unlike other events with similar
theme and orientation, the focus of IENE’s Vienna Energy Transition Forum was
not one sided, as is often the case when the whole discussion ends up being an
eulogy for renewables and the need for temperature rise containment to so many
degrees.
The Forum’s
organisers chose a far more difficult path when dealing with the real problems
of Climate Change which are global rather then regional and certainly not
European, since Europe's contribution to the planet's rising greenhouse gases
is rather small (and declining) compared to the rest of the world and Asia's in
particular. And besides, as IENE’s Chairman and Executive Director Costis
Stambolis pointed out in his opening remarks, "Europe has a well worked out
plan to mitigate increased greenhouse gases. In addition Europe’s role is
significant, to say the least, in terms of technology and methodology, and
hence its scientific contribution in fighting Climate Change is proportionally
much higher compared to other countries”.
Stambolis also stressed that IENE, "through this Forum, aspires
to broaden the debate on Energy Transition by giving equal weight to energy
branches hitherto considered anathema in discussing the contribution of energy
in mitigating climate change. In this context we believe that the role of
natural gas, nuclear power and that of the oil and gas must be fully re
considered in view of the serious merits that each one of them brings in the
overall effort for decarbonization”.
In the same vein IENE’s past chairmanMr. John Chatzivasiliadis observed that the energy transformation aiming
towards decarbonization will be one of the major elements in the 21st century
based on renewables and natural gas. Decarbonisation was not so much a constant thread as a
steel cable running through IENE’s Vienna Energy Transition Forum in Vienna on
June 6 and 7, 2019. From the first day’s
opening statement by Janez Kopac,
Director of the Energy Community in Vienna, to the closing remarks by John Roberts, the need to move as
swiftly as possible to carbon neutrality was stressed by speaker after
speaker. And it is cost-effective,
too. Kopac said prices on the European carbon market are now starting to have a
significant impact on investment in new power plants in western Balkans.
Futhermore, VETF consensus
indicated that natural gas remains a major energy carrier in the energy sector
and further expansion of its use and domination worldwide during the 21st
century should be expected. Significant amounts of natural gas are used for
power generation to substitute coal towards low CO2 emissions, in parallel with
high penetration of renewables. Moreover, new uses of LNG in transport and
shipping is becoming increasingly important.
The full text
of the Vienna Energy Transition Forum Overview can be seen by accessing the event’s
microsite at: http://www.iene.eu/en/congress/17/vienna-energy-transition-forum.
