JUCCCE Clean Energy Forum--Closing Summary

The following is the complete transcript, modified and supplemented for completeness and readability, of the closing speech that the author of this blog (pictured below) delivered on November 11 at the JUCCCE Clean Energy Forum in Beijing.

We are at war.  A world war.  But unlike World War I or II, this is not a war about military tanks, but it’s a war about gas tanks.  This is not a war about military strength, it’s a war about political strength, and innovation.  This is not a war about conquering territories, its about conquering our addiction to fossil fuels.  And unlike the first two wars, we are all fighting from the same side.  We are engaged in a global energy and climate war.  We have essentially, through our reckless consumption of the earth’s natural resources, provoked an unanticipated response in the world’s climatic system.  We have essentially pitted Mother Nature against Mother Nature, and we are all caught in the middle.

So what now?

We need a serious restructuring of the way we organize our energy system, implement new rules and policies, and adopt new ways of using energy.  We need to, as Rob Watson says, change transform “ego-nomics” into “eco-nomics,” and we do this by appropriate adapting human laws to the immutable laws of nature.

So how do we get there?  How do we achieve the innovation to meet the energy-climate challenge?  We need an smart and well informed mix of regulatory and market mechanisms.  There is no single silver bullet, but I believe that over the past two days of discourse, we have collectively started forming a framework for the array of solutions, a full complement of many green bullets to get the green revolution under way.  I see three themes emerging from our discussions:  Read the full story