This Business-to-Government Dialogue fosters exchange between the German energy industry and high-ranking government officials this year from Colombia. During this year’s session, the German industry representatives have the opportunity to obtain valuable information on the current legal and economic framework of the country in question. The focus will be on different aspects on national energy strategies and recent developments of high-level government speakers.
The Green Recovery is a broadly used term nowadays. People and states put their hopes in the concept in order to both achieve their renewable energy and climate targets and overcome the economic downturn due to Covid-19 pandemic. But also in the longer run a structural change towards a greener and more sustainable economic system is needed in order to ensure both adequate living conditions for every species on earth and economic prosperity.
How can we integrate green structures into our economic systems? How can Covid-recovery measures trigger a strong momentum for green growth? Which measures need to be undertaken? What is the role of the energy transition in that regard?
This closing session seeks to explore these questions and to draw conclusions, by looking at it from a scientific point of view. It is also a wonderful opportunity to give an outlook and to take a look back at the different topics of the conference and examine their validity for bringing a green structural change in our economic systems.
The world of transportation is undoubtedly in the midst of major disruption and facing unprecedented challenges on multiple fronts. The need to develop solutions that reduce emissions from our communities while keeping people moving is all too clear and crucially this goes hand in hand with supporting the clean energy transition.
Today’s transport and energy challenges require a holistic approach. Our discussion will bring comprehensive solutions built on several pieces of a mobility jigsaw puzzle: better urban planning, reduction and optimisation of our mobility needs, digitalisation, new business models, shared economy, behavioural changes and electrification.
Innovative energy solutions are vital to achieving the sustainability targets that will ensure a green future. Technological innovation, pushed by public and private expenditures on research and development, is a major driver for this change. With this, effective financing of start-ups and innovators plays an important role. This panel will delve into how private and public funding can be successfully channeled towards technologies and business models to combat climate change. The panelists will also explore specific good practice examples to illustrate how public and private funding drives innovation forward and what start-ups need to look out for when accessing it.
The world is becoming increasingly urbanized. Cities will need to accommodate two thirds of the world’s population in a liveable, low-carbon environment by 2050. As city populations grow, the demand for services but also pressure on resources will increase. This demand puts a strain on energy, water, waste, mobility and any other services that are essential to a city’s prosperity and sustainability.
Cities also offer clear opportunities to reduce emissions and develop climate-resilient future infrastructure.
This session will shed a light on the shaping of smart and liveable cities, as a place where traditional networks and services are made more efficient with the use of digital and telecommunication technologies for the benefit of its inhabitants and businesses.
Electricity is today at the heart of modern societies and economies, providing a rising share of energy services. The global shift towards an intensifying electrification of functions and lifestyles has gathered considerable momentum in past years. It is considered today to be a megatrend of the new century, one that accelerates the green energy transition, but also involves certain risks.
The share of heating and cooling in global final energy consumption is still higher than the use of electricity. And the carbon intensity of traditional fuels makes the heating industry switch to green gases. A special challenge resides in the building sector with its long investment cycles and relative inertia to rapid change. Also, strategies for the green energy transition and decarbonisation of global societies need to avoid single-edged dependencies on specific energy carriers and rather foster diversification and system redundancy, be it at local, national, continental or intercontinental levels.
This session explores the limits of mass electrification in selected sectors. Can electricity fully replace today’s transport as well as heating and cooling technologies, which are still mostly based on fossil fuels? And what about differentiated strategies for industrialised and developing countries?
The global Covid-19 pandemic can in many ways be compared to climate change after pushing the “fast forward” button. It has had an enormous impact on virtually everybody’s health, well-being, and in many cases on their financial and labour market prospects as well However, the younger generation is particularly adversely affected by these developments. Covid-19 has made it clear how quickly and how comprehensively a global crisis can affect all of our lives, penetrating deeply into the private sphere. Are there lessons to be learned from this global crisis?
The Covid-19 crisis impressively shows how much our fight against it depends on solidarity on all levels of society. The global pandemic, like the climate catastrophe, does not stop at national borders.
Health and environmental crises hit the most vulnerable members of our societies particularly hard. What can we do to encourage more solidarity among all ages, all sectors, and all countries to tackle the arguably even more serious long-term crisis of climate change?
The United Nations Development Program’s “Peoples’ Climate Vote” conducted by the University of Oxford reflects the opinions of over half of the world’s population. Sixty-four percent of people believe climate change is a global emergency, despite the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. When it comes to age, younger people (under 18) were more likely to say climate change is an emergency than older people. Nevertheless, other age groups were not far behind, illustrating how widely held this view has become.
In 2015, the Agenda 2030 was adopted by 193 Member States of the United Nations. It sets 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) for a transition towards less inequalities, less poverty and more solutions to tackle climate change. The SDGs consist of 169 concrete targets to be carried out effectively by 2030. But how are these global goals concretely translated into local action? With a focus on the energy transition, this session will present successful initiatives all over the world which have taken upon themselves to implement the global goals.
One of today’s most important challenges is the decarbonization of the economy. Within just a few decades, all our energy needs will have to come from carbon-free sources. This will require huge changes in little more than a single generation, and will demand innovative solutions, technologies and policies. Hydrogen plays a crucial role in making this fundamental change to our energy systems.
If the world acts to prevent the climate emergency from becoming a catastrophic reality for the next generations, the global hydrogen economy of the future will be massive.
Our discussion will shed a light on the opportunities and challenges of hydrogen in the green economy.
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