Prize for Peace, Energy & Climate Leadership

US President Barack Obama won the Nobel Peace Prize for giving the world “hope for a better future”, striving for nuclear disarmament and for climate change leadership. Now the Russian president Dmitry Medvedev wants to make his country a superpower in energy efficiency. By 2020, he wants to cut Russian energy consumption by 40%.

Medvedev Eyes Eco-Friendly Reforms

By Benjamin Bidder for Reuters:

Russia has long been a profligate consumer of energy, but President Dmitry Medvedev would like to change that.

Russia has never made energy conservation much of a priority. But President Dmitry Medvedev would like that to change. He wants to see consumption drop by 40 percent in the next decade — but without the technological know-how, it could be difficult.

Sometimes, Dmitry Medvedev has to be brusque. Last Wednesday, the Russian president found it necessary to reprimand his audience in front of national television cameras for talking during his speech. “Whoever’s chatting can go somewhere else. And that includes the bosses,” he said. Medvedev is not accustomed to being ignored.

The problem may have been his choice of subject. The normally stoic Kremlin boss had been giving a speech on his new favorite subject: energy efficiency. It is not a topic that generally receives much attention in Russia.

Which is hardly a surprise. Medvedev’s predecessor Vladimir Putin was quick to shut down the State Committee for the Protection of the Environment soon after entering office in 2000. At the time, the nation prided itself on its natural gas fields and smoking chimneys — symbols of the country’s renewed status as a global power. Only sissies worried about climate change and carbon dioxide emissions.

These days however, Moscow’s rich and powerful must acquaint themselves with a new set of priorities — those of the man who took office in May 2008. Medvedev is now hell-bent on modernizing the Russian economy, an undertaking which has implications for the oil and gas industry. The Russian president wants to make his country a superpower in energy efficiency.

Superfluous Gas Torched

Medvedev’s choice of location to hold forth on his eco-friendly project was replete with symbolism: the Kurchatov Institute, Russia’s leading research and development facility in the field of nuclear energy and birthplace of the Soviet atomic bomb. It was here, in 1949, that researchers developed the nuclear weapons that would launch the USSR to superpower status. Now, Medvedev hopes Kurchatov researchers can develop technologies that will curb Russia’s voracious appetite for energy.

Currently, the country consumes vast quantities of energy, the result of outdated and inefficient factories coupled with subsidized energy prices. Even today, many Russians are forced to open windows in the middle of winter to combat hyper-charged district heating systems. The Siberian sky is lit up by the bright flames of gas fields as excess gas is simply burned off.

Last week, Medvedev spoke of a “depressing situation.” Russian factories use up four or five times more energy than their Western counterparts. In addition, district heating systems are profoundly wasteful, with much of the heat being lost before it even reaches consumers. In mid-September, Medvedev wrote a much-read article in which he stated that “the energy efficiency of the majority of our companies is shamefully low.”

‘Nothing Has Happened’

Medvedev’s plan is ambitious. By 2020, he wants to cut Russian energy consumption by 40 percent, a goal he outlined in his speech on Wednesday, attended by the likes of Finance Minister Alexei Kudrin, Economic Development Minister Elvira Nabiullina and Russia’s richest man, Mikhail Prochorow. Even Deputy Prime Minister Igor Sechin, who, thanks to his position is also chairman of the board at the national oil company Rosneft, was taking detailed notes.

Medvedev’s message was simple: “Those who save energy, save money.” He is hoping to pass energy conservation legislation by the end of October.

Russia is now looking towards Germany for assistance in meeting its efficiency goals. In July, Medvedev and German Chancellor Angela Merkel established the “Russian-German Energy Agency” in Munich.

“This is the first important step for getting vital technology into the country. It also shows, however, that Russia simply does not yet have the necessary know-how,” explains Stefan Meister, an expert on Russia at the German Council on Foreign Relations (DGAP).

Meister points out that it is also unclear how Medvedev intends to finance expensive projects such as swapping out incandescent lightbulbs for more energy-efficient bulbs nationwide. “Which business incentives will be used? How does one encourage large companies to save energy? These questions remain completely unanswered,” Meister said.

President Medvedev, as his speech made clear, is aware of the problem. However few concrete steps have been taken to date. “So far,” says Meister, “nothing has happened.”

Source: www.spiegel.de

By Wojciech Moskwa for Reuters:

OSLO – U.S. President Barack Obama won the Nobel Peace Prize on Friday for giving the world “hope for a better future” and striving for nuclear disarmament.

The decision to award one of the world’s top accolades to a president less than nine months into his first term, who has yet to score a major foreign policy success, came as a big surprise and provoked strong international criticism as well as praise.

The Norwegian Nobel Committee praised Obama for “his extraordinary efforts to strengthen international diplomacy and cooperation between peoples.”

The first African-American to hold his country’s highest office, Obama has called for disarmament and worked to restart the stalled Middle East peace process since taking office in January.

“Very rarely has a person to the same extent as Obama captured the world’s attention and given its people hope for a better future,” the committee said in a citation.

In a speech in Prague in April, Obama declared: “So today, I state clearly and with conviction America’s commitment to seek the peace and security of a world without nuclear weapons.”

But he was not the first American president to set that goal, and acknowledged it might not be reached in his lifetime.

On other pressing issues, he faces hard decisions on the future of the war in Afghanistan and is still searching for breakthroughs on Iran’s disputed nuclear program and on the stalled Middle East peace process.

Israel’s foreign minister said on Thursday there was no chance of a peace deal for many years.

The chief Palestinian peace negotiator, Saeb Erekat, welcomed the award to Obama and expressed hope that “he will be able to achieve peace in the Middle East.”

Mikhail Gorbachev, the last Soviet leader and a Nobel Prize winner himself, said: “I am happy. What Obama did during his presidency is a big signal, he gave a hope. In these hard times people who are capable of taking responsibility, who have a vision, commitment and political will should be supported.”

But some Arab and Muslim reaction was fiercely critical.

“Obama’s winning the peace prize shows these prizes are political, not governed by the principles of credibility, values and morals,” said an Islamic Jihad leader, Khaled Al-Batsh.

“Why should Obama be given a peace prize while his country owns the largest nuclear arsenal on Earth and his soldiers continue to shed innocent blood in Iraq and Afghanistan?”

Issam al-Khazraji, a day laborer in Baghdad, said: “He doesn’t deserve this prize. All these problems — Iraq, Afghanistan — have not been solved…The man of ‘change’ hasn’t changed anything yet.”

Liaqat Baluch, a senior leader of the Jamaat-e-Islami, a conservative religious party in Pakistan, said: “It’s a joke. How embarrassing for those who awarded it to him, because he’s done nothing for peace. What change has he brought in Iraq, the Middle East or Afghanistan?”

Obama is the third senior U.S. Democrat to win the prize this decade after former Vice President Al Gore won in 2007 along with the U.N. climate panel and Jimmy Carter in 2002.

The prize worth 10 million Swedish crowns ($1.4 million) will be handed over in Oslo on December 10.

Source: www.reuters.com