Friday, May 28, 2010

The Great Transformation

The Great Transformation, Greening the Economy, Berlin 28/29 June 2010

Welcome words, Andre Wilkens


Welcome on behalf of Stiftung Mercator, one of the Co-Organisers of this meeting.


We are happy to team up with Böll Stiftung and Centre for American Progress for this important gathering of such a distinguished group of speakers and participants from Europe, the US and China.


We see this meeting in the tradition and as a natural evaluation of the Great Transformation conference in Essen one year ago. The Essen meeting put the term ‘Great Transformation’ into the political debate. The focus was cultural and behavioral change. Because this great transformation cannot happen just through technological advancement, as many would like to believe. Human behavior need to change.


Why another conference on Great Transformation? Because, if a great transformation could be started by one conference, it would probably not be a great transformation.


And, today this topic is probably even more relevant as a year ago, as climate skeptics get organized in trying to portrait Climate Change as hysterics. These people are the ones who want to keep business as usual. Clearly, if you have invested in oil, gas and coal, business as usual seems the best business model, especially in times of growing resource scarcity and prices.


We believe the world cannot continue with the ‘business as usual scenario. We deserve and urgently need a new business model.


Climate Change is one factor which demand a new business model, resource scarcity and competition is another one. The cuurent financial and economic crisis is a third factor. And the need for growth through innovation is a 4th key factor. Carbon based growth is not the growth model which will get us out of this crisis. There are signs that China has understood this. Prof. Pan Juan will tell us more about it later ion this conference.


Climate Change was put on the policy agenda by activists and scientists. Based on scientific evidence and common sense they painted a horror scenario for what will happen if we do not act. This created the political will for action, in principle. Copenhagen confirmed the political will, but only in principle, not in concrete targets.


We now need to make the case that economic and behavioral change will not only avoid a disaster but that it is beneficial in any case, economically, culturally and even mentally.


This is the forward looking message we expect from this conference, supported by concrete ways to facilitate this great transformation.


I hope that future generations will look back at this conference as one of the important catalyst for this Great Transformation.


With these high expectations, I wish us all a productive two days.