Recession has set the stage for the sharpest fall in world greenhouse gas emissions in 40 years. International Energy Agency (IEA) chief economist Fatih Birol says global output of carbon dioxide would fall by about 2.6% this year amid a tumble in industrial activity, while the All Energy Australia event kicks off in Melbourne on 7 October.

The future of the clean and renewal energy industry will come under the microscope when speakers representing more than a trillion dollars in private capital discuss the business of investing in the sector at a major conference in Australia next month.

To be held at the Melbourne Convention and Exhibition Centre on October 7th and 8th, All-Energy Australia is the most prestigious clean energy event this country has seen and is modelled on a highly successful UK conference and exhibition.

Thursday, October 8th will see a 90-minute round table discussion that will involve the following industry heavyweights:

• Bob Welsh, CEO, VicSuper, a major investor in cleantech energy;

• Fred Buenrostro, former CEO of California Public Employees Retirement Scheme (CalPERS), USA. CalPERS is one of the world’s largest pension funds and a major “activist” investor in cleantech. Mr Buenrostro is one of the key architects of CalPERS cleantech investment strategy;

• Steve Gibbs, Investor Group on Climate Change, Australia;

• Jan Dekker, Principal, Cleantech Ventures Pty Ltd, who is in overall charge of the State of Victoria’s investment in cleantech energy;

• Peter Hanley, Division Director, Utilities & Climate Change, Macquarie Capital Advisers Limited, Australia, a venture capital investor in cleantech energy;

• Lisa Wade, Partner, ArkX Equity Partners, Australia, another venture capital investor in cleantech energy.

Regional director of All-Energy Australia, Boyd Dale, says it is likely that this is the first time that so much private investment capital has been represented in one place at the one time in Australia.

“It is not too much of a stretch to say that these finance leaders have the future of the clean energy sector in their hands,” Mr Dale says.

Free to registered delegates, this business-to-business event has attracted more than 100 Australian and international speakers and will showcase the latest technology and innovation in clean and renewal energy.

Among keynote speakers are

• Olivier Druecke, President of the European Solar Thermal Technology Industry Federation
• Brad Page, CEO of the Energy Supply Association
•  Ian Gallet, who heads the Society of Underwater Technology
• Victoria’s Energy and Resources Minister, Peter Batchelor

Others of note to address the two-day multi-stream conference will include Drew Clarke, Deputy Secretary of the Department of Resources, Energy and Tourism, Richard Elkington, General Manager Power & Environment for Loy Yang Power and Bruce Harrison, CEO of the Biofuels Association of Australia.

Mr Dale says “All-Energy Australia will provide a forum for discussion and networking between those involved in the industry and a good opportunity to mix with other likeminded individuals and companies.”

“The event – hosted by the Victorian Department of Primary Industries and endorsed by the Australian Clean Energy Council and the Western Australian Sustainable Energy Association – will canvas all major themes relating to clean and sustainable energy development.”

Delegates are being drawn from around the world. Registrations to date include representatives from Europe, North America, the United Arab Emirates, China, India, Japan, Malaysia and Nepal.

The event organisers are also responsible for orchestrating All-Energy UK, Europe’s largest clean energy exhibition and conference, which has been staged annually in Aberdeen, Scotland, since 2001.

All-Energy UK ‘09 – held in May – was the most successful yet, attracting more than 5,000 global participants, including nearly 400 exhibitors, from 60 countries.

Source: www.all-energy.com.au

Gerard Wynn and Timothy Gardner for Reuters World Environment News (22 September 2009):

LONDON/NEW YORK – Recession has set the stage for the sharpest fall in world greenhouse gas emissions in 40 years, an estimate Monday showed, as world leaders gathered in New York to seek a way forward on a new climate change treaty.

The International Energy Agency said global output of carbon dioxide, the most common greenhouse gas produced by burning fossil fuels, would fall by about 2.6 percent this year amid a tumble in industrial activity.

It expressed hope that the world would seize on the decline to shift to lower-carbon growth despite worries that governments might take it as an excuse for inaction.

“This fall in emissions and in investment in fossil fuels will only have meaning with agreement in Copenhagen which provides a low-carbon signal to investors,” IEA chief economist Fatih Birol told Reuters.

World leaders are to meet at U.N. headquarters Tuesday for a one-day climate summit to try to unlock 190-nation negotiations on a new deal to combat global warming due to be hammered out in Copenhagen in December.

Chinese President Hu Jintao is expected to unveil on Tuesday new measures his country intends to take to tackle global warming, although experts say this may focus on goals for curbing “carbon intensity” — the amount of emissions per unit of economic output — rather than absolute cuts in emissions.

U.N. climate chief Yvo de Boer said the Chinese leader’s speech would thrust his country into a new leadership role.

“This suite of policies will take China to be a world leader on addressing climate change, and it will be quite ironic to hear that tomorrow expressed in a country (the United States) that is firmly convinced that China is doing nothing to address climate change,” he told reporters.

Negotiations among 190 nations are stalled over how to share the burden of curbs on gas emissions through 2020 between rich and poor nations and how to raise perhaps $100 billion a year to help the poor combat warming and adapt to changes such as rising seas or desertification.

Some experts expressed doubts that recession and falling industrial output could be a springboard to greener growth.

“When politicians talk about the financial crisis everything is about returning to growth, which means higher emissions,” said Paal Prestrud, director of the Center for International Climate and Environmental Research in Oslo.

“We have to reduce emissions in a planned way to avoid social problems, not through recession,” he said.

Aside from China, eyes at the summit will be on the United States. Environmentalists hope the pair, the top emitters which account for more than 40 percent of the world total, will find common ground to help spur the Copenhagen talks.

President Barack Obama will have to persuade the rest of the world that Washington is serious about cutting its emissions when it looks unlikely the U.S. Senate will pass climate legislation in time for Copenhagen.

The U.N. talks are “dangerously close to deadlock,” European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso said in New York, challenging developing nations to do more in order to secure financial support from industrialized nations.

“This may not be a simple negotiating stand-off that we can fix next year,” according to notes from his speech. “It risks being an acrimonious collapse, delaying action against climate change perhaps for years.”

British Prime Minister Gordon Brown opened the possibility of turning the December 7-18 Copenhagen talks — due to be a meeting of environment ministers — into a summit of world leaders.

“If it is necessary to clinch the deal, I will personally go to Copenhagen to achieve it — and I will be urging my fellow leaders to do so too,” Brown wrote in an article in Newsweek magazine.

On September 24-25, leaders of the G20 will meet in Pittsburgh but Washington said it would not include a major discussion of how developed nations should provide financial support to developing nations to cope with climate change.

Source: www.planetark.org