Il WEC Inside è una pubblicazione bimestrale del World Energy Council (WEC) contenente interviste a rappresentanti del WEC e dei Comitati Nazionali, overview e aggiornamenti sulle attività recenti e future del WEC in tutto il mondo e, approfondimenti sulle ultime news in ambito energetico.
1. WEC Inside
1–30 November 2013
Welcome to WEC Inside, your exclusive
briefing from your WEC network
News
22nd World Energy Congress reflects
concerns about shifting energy agenda
The significant interest in last month’s World
Energy Congress reflected global concerns about
today’s shifting energy agenda.
The flagship event of the World Energy Council,
which took place in Daegu, South Korea from 13 to
17 October, gathered more than 7500 participants
from 123 countries. These included 270 speakers
from 68 countries, who discussed the most urgent
energy challenges in an extensive four-day programme consisting 62 sessions, four community
roundtables, and eight side events.
Notably, 52 ministers from 38 countries attended the Congress, which also hosted a public
ministerial dialogue with eight government leaders,
plus a closed Ministerial Roundtable for select
ministers and heads of development banks.
The Congress hosted three other exclusive
‘community roundtables’: World Energy Council
Insights, World Energy Leaders’ Summit, and the
Global Electricity Initiative. As with the Ministerial
Roundtable, these dialogue spaces provided an
‘invitation only’, peer-to-peer discussion of critical
issues for the respective energy communities.
Korean President Park Geun-hye and Prime
Minister Jung Hong-won attended the event in
two separate visits. Having both heads of government attend the events shows Korea’s significant
endorsement of the event, said WEC Secretary
General Christoph Frei, as protocol would normally
have either leader attending one given event.
Ministers, heads of institutions and development banks, and WEC officials met at the Congress
The Congress was supported by 44 sponsors,
248 exhibitors, and 46 media partners. More than
450 representatives from the world’s media covered
the Congress, representing leading publications,
news agencies, broadcasters, trade and specialist
press. Major exhibition highlights included a Russia
Day event and the China and UAE pavilions.
Mrs Marie-José Nadeau, the newly inaugurated Chair of the World Energy Council, said the
significant attendance reflected the growing complexities confronting the energy sector. She added:
“Our immediate challenge is to find a way of distilling the outcomes from all these sessions into a
series of meaningful lessons or messages that we
can take home to our respective stakeholders.”
Among the critical issues is the need to help
close the gap between the availability and the need
for energy. “Global energy supplies are plentiful …
Yet, 1.2 billion people remain without access to
energy.”
Mrs Nadeau made the remarks as she took the
reins as WEC Chair at the Congress Closing Ceremony.
Christoph Frei, Secretary General of the
World Energy Council, said the other top energy
issues are the lack of a globally recognised carbon
framework, the global recessionary context,
News continued on page 2 ...
Interview
Marie-José Nadeau has just taken the helm as the first woman
chair in the WEC’s 90-year history. She talks about her vision, the
2013 Congress, and the path towards Istanbul 2016.
What are your key takeaways from the
2013 Congress?
What are your key tasks on the path to
Istanbul 2016?
The Congress has been outstanding in terms of its
programme and attendance, with 7500 delegates,
including our 93 country member committees, 52
ministers from around the world, close to 100
sessions, and 270 speakers. This is truly remarkable – and we owe it to WEC's London team and to
the Korean Organising Committee.
I think that the word – the buzzword of the
Congress – is ‘trilemma’. I firmly believe that our
trilemma study provides a simple and effective way
to frame the debate. Energy access, energy security and environmental mitigation are the three key
pillars in which we can discuss the most pressing
problems facing energy and find consensus on
appropriate solutions. I hope that we can bring this
initiative one step further in Istanbul.
As always, we will work closely with the Organising
Committee. We are fortunate that the Turkish
Energy Minister was in Daegu, meeting with influential CEOs and other ministers. Istanbul, we must
remember, is a bridge between Asia, Europe and
the Middle East and we must take advantage of
that extraordinary context. Once the Congress
theme is agreed upon, we will be promoting the
Congress with the view to attract as much attention
and as many delegates as possible.
Marie-José Nadeau is Chair of
the World Energy Council.
1
Give us an idea of your strategy and
your vision for the next three years as
Chair of the World Energy Council.
As Chair of the World Energy Council, three objectives will drive my action until our 2016 Congress.
Like all representative organisations, there are
always areas in which we need to grow and become stronger. My first objective is to increase the
WEC’s presence in countries that are not represented or where we have under-representation of key
stakeholders in both our membership and
governance structure. I know I can count on the
support of the co-chair and regional vice chairs to
achieve this goal.
My second objective is to work on our inclusiveness and diversity. Few, if any, global organisations
are as inclusive and diverse as WEC, both in terms
of regional representation and scope of our
membership. That does not imply that we cannot
Interview continued on page 3 ...
1–30 November 2013 WEC Inside