New Energy for Europe and its godfathers II

This is an article I wrote in November 2007 and which seems very relevant again in the current context of the Russian-Ukrainian Gas dispute.

Al Gore and Vladimir Putin are the godfathers of the EU’s fast emerging common energy and climate policy.
We must be thankful to them, although their godfatherly means of persuasion have been quite different.
Al Gore uncovered the inconvenient truth on climate change and created a global sense of urgency to fighting climate change. He did this through the means of personal persuasion, convening power, the use of media and public engagement which created pressure on policy makers. This message had a particularly strong resonance in Europe.
Vladimir Putin uncovered the inconvenient truth on Europe’s growing energy dependency and vulnerability of Russian supply, and he created a sense of urgency for the EU to diversity supply. He did this by cutting energy supply to Ukraine, Georgia and Belarus during the cold winter months and for political and economic reasons. This message also had a very strong resonance in Europe as supply to the EU was also affected.
It is very fortunate that these two godfathers made their case at roughly the same time and therefore helping the EU to connect previously separate discussions on energy security and climate change.
Thanks to these two godfathers Europe has moved at tremendous speed towards a Common European Energy Policy (which is actually also a climate policy) with specific targets on cutting CO2 by 20% by 2020, increasing energy efficiency by 20% and increasing the share of renewable energy to 20% by 2020. By the end of 2007 the EU will agree also specific ways of reaching these targets.
In the next two years the EU will reform its 100 billion annual budget and it is very likely that energy and climate issues will take a much higher share in the new EU budget, in terms of supporting the emerging policy framework through financial market incentives to move to a carbon low energy model.
But in the light of the accelerating effects of climate change and energy power games, Europe has a long way to go to meet these challenges both at European level and in order to play a global role in fighting climate change.
So, Europe will need Al Gore and Vladimir Putin to continue to use their godfatherly means of persuasion and help Europe to implement a more and more ambitious Common Energy and Climate Policy.
Concretely about the policy:

Europe should make energy and climate policy the key policy area for the years to come, both as an internal and external policy
This would be essentially a clearly self interest driven policy, but which will benefit both Europe and the world.

+Incite and support a technology and knowledge driven clean energy revolution. This should be the basis for a new European economic model to position Europe successfully in the times of globalisation, so that Europe can continue to provide peace, prosperity and security to its citizens. These were the founding principles of the EU and the reasons for its success.
By doing so, inciting a global race for a new, sustainable and profitable energy and economic model. As a European I wish that Europe will reap the benefits of the first mover. But in the interest of meeting the challenges of climate change, the best and fastest should make the race, and why not China.

+Europe as a global player. Pushing for global agreements on climate change suits Europe soft power mentality, based on the principle of leading by example.

+Assist affected areas in the developing world, particularly Africa, to deal with the affects of climate change and share the benefits of the technological revolution in Europe with the developing world.

+ Mitigate the negative effects of climate migration both regionally and to Europe

+Reduce dependency on carbon energy sources and their producers, therefore creating room for policy making without double standards both in the economic field and international politics

I played the Wii, and I liked it ...

Thanks to my friends Maya and Dominic I had my first Wii experience yesterday and, despite low expectations, I liked it a lot. In fact it was fun, communicative and quite athletic.

I have to admit that so far I considered computer games something for pale nerds with face2face communication problems living out their unrealized fantasies in front of a PC screen. I know this is (probably) unjust.

Of course I know that things have moved on, especially since my son Max, now 11, plays computer games with total ease and he is certainly not a shy boy in the real world. Still I thought this is not for me, I am a real world person.

But with the Wii the lines between the real and the virtual world are becoming more blurred. Now both can involve real sweat and Muskelkater (muscle strain). Add a solarium lamp to the Wii and you will even get a tan while playing Wii tennis.

This is now and this is fun. But I was already thinking ahead. Will we be moving towards a hybrid world of real and virtual, where the virtual kicks in when the real runs out or when it does not deliver anymore? For example, you can start of your skiing holiday in Switzerland in real life and switch to the virtual when the snow melts. And in the latter case, we may have to go virtual anyway as the climate changes.

But why travel at all? Everything can be done from home, not just ordering food and books but also playing tennis, flying, driving, swimming and fighting the baddies with James Bond.

Could this even be a way of dealing with inequalities? If you can’t afford skiing, golfing, sailing, flying in real life, you can get it in virtual life.

As technology develops the difference between real and virtual world may even become difficult to distinguish and one will need a disclaimer on what is real and what is not, along the lines ‘Please be aware that you now enter the real world and your service provider will not be liable for any damages encountered.’

But before I get carried away let me put in a few more Wii sessions and then report back.

Growth through retrofitting and reclaiming

This global financial and economic crisis may also be the beginning of the end of the Western throw away society. But can our high end capitalism survive and keep people in jobs unless we endlessless produce, consume and throw away?

One direction for future growth is retrofitting and reclaiming.

Why throw away a whole car full of steel, plastics and electronics when much of it can be continously repaired and updated. This concept works with houses. People appreciate old houses with history but retrofit them continously with the latest modcons: lights, central heating, double glazing, roof insulation etc. This model should be possible to adapt for all sorts of other products, from big to small. Retrofitting and reclaiming is both labour and technology intensive and requires local craftsmenship.

In sum, retrofitting will waste less raw materials, use less energy, use more local labour and channel creative energy from always inventing new things to making old things better.

This still seems to be a big niche. I tried to retrofit an old bicycle with new gears and lights which was not possible. At least my physical condition benefits as it is pretty hard work to ride.

Twothousandandnine - year of change

These are my 20 minute thoughts and hopes for the New Year (London, 31st January, 12:06).

2009 will be a year of change, not just because this was the election platform of Barack Obama (in which he hopefully still believes), but because the world had a heart attack in September 2008 and any serious doctor could not advise to simply get back to normal.

Heart attacks are usually a symptom of something, either your body/system gets old or your body/system was working under extreme pressure which it could not withstand.

Let’s assume the world is still in its prime but has been working beyond capacity. What would a doctor do after a heart attack? He would deal with the emergency at hand and get the system working again. This is what happened between September and November 2008. Then the doctor would tell you to take a rest, stop running, stop gambling and stop unnecessary stress. He would tell you to go back to the fundamentals and reevaluate your whole way of life. You will probably do less for a while, spend time with the family and ask yourself what you really want from life. This is what is happening now, the world takes a step back, does less (produces less, hence the recession fears) and starts to reevaluate whether the current way of life can continue.

Following this train of thought, 2009 will be a year of slowing down and changing to a more sustainable way of life: a way of life, less frenetic, more thoughtful and more orientated towards long term sustainability.

For other reasons than outlined below, I decided that 2009 will also be a year of change for me: moving global (to the UN) and South (to Geneva). It will probably be a slower year and a year of reevaluating our personal way of life.

Let’s see next year how the world and the Wilkens-Goldings have managed the year of change.

Plan D comes from Ireland

I believe the EU will work better with the Lisbon treaty. It helps to make the institutions, voting and power sharing more transparent and manageable. Ratifying the Lisbon treaty also finishes the institutional navel gazing and creates room for doing real stuff. From my perspective, the EU needs even simpler, transparent and democratic rules which would probably move it further towards a federal structure. This would be fine with me. Having said that, I agree that a second Irish referendum is not the most democratic way out of the problem. I have argued straight after the first Irish referendum that one should ditch the Lisbon treaty and gradually reform the EU step-by-step, as it has happened so far.

Of course, ideally we should have a more efficient and democratic European Union. But from my perspective this can only be achieved through more federalism.

From what I understand Libertas will be a pan-European party which stands for more democracy in Europe. There is nothing to argue about. I could undersign this.
But the single focus of Libertas on fighting the Lisbon treaty weakens it, I think. If you stand for more democracy, why not propose to have a pan-European referendum about the Lisbon treaty on the same day with the referendum passing with 50% of the European electorate. This would then also be consistent with the direct election of the EU President as proposed by Libertas. I am all for this. Together with the EP elections in June this would be the best communications campaign for Europe, a real political discussion about Europe’s future. This would be a real Plan D, not a buraucratic Plan D of funding information campaigns.

In this way, the creation of Libertas as a pan-European party with a united election platform is a good thing and puts the mainstream parties under pressure to think and campaign more European. If that happens we will have a real European Parliament election campaign in 2009, with real debate and political competition. If Libertas can act as the catalyst for this, Libertas will be thanked by pro-Europeans all over Europe.

A first concrete US contribution to climate change

The Obama administration should not waste its energy and money on saving the 3 big US car makers, but rather use their market failure as a first concrete contribution to a new climate policy.

The economic state of GM, Ford and Chrysler is a reflection of the fact that they have missed the turn to defining mobility in the 21st century. Instead they were lost in a time bubble projecting past and current consumer patters into the future and building ineffient monsters believing their own advertising strategies.

Not many people knew that the end would come so quickly, but the signs were on the wall, with climbing oil prices and government CO2 regulations. While oil prices have dropped dramatically, government CO2 regulation has increased and consumer behaviour is changing, partly due to current recession fears.

Why should the US, or any other government, spent tax payers money on saving inefficient and polluting industries? Any government investment in these industries now will only prolonge their agony and waste another $ 50-100 billion (or credit which US taxpayers will have to pay back for many years). In addition, a government bail out will make it possible for the car makers to continue building inefficient and polluting cars which will be forced on US consumers under the 'Buy American' slogan. This will make for a bad start of US climate change policy when the main thing the US needs now is credibility.

Of course, it's all about jobs and this is important. But given the choice, should the government not invest in jobs for the future rather than jobs of the past? Can the US government asked China to close down coal power plants when it keeps subsidiesing its ineffienct and polluting car monsters?

I propose that the US government puts together a stimulus package for the car makers, the people who build the cars. They should receive a one-off payment helping them to make a new start in life. The car companies can get subsidies only for business plans based on new mobility ideas.

This way the collapse of the car industry in the US can create opportunities for new enterpreneurship and help to reduce the US and global CO2 targets at the same time.

How to rebuild Iceland: A letter to a friend in Reijavik

My dear friend,

You ask me how to rebuild trust in Iceland. Here are my two cents:

Starting point for rebuilding trust, both internally and externally, is to design and implement policies which make sense and work (the Product). Acknowledge mistakes, draw conclusions and come up with bold policy proposals to move forward. Be absolutely transparent and participatory in the communications (we need all of you here to get out of this mess).
Create a ‘We’ feeling, rather then we are the victims and the guys at the top always mess up.

Act and communicate along the following lines:

We made mistakes because we had too much trust in the invisible hand of the market – we had become market fundamentalists. We were not alone in this, but we were possibly among the most extreme and the most exposed. PM should offer to resign, but say that this will not solve the issue.
Clear message that government is working 24/7 and engages the best brains in Iceland and the world.
Priorities now are: short term crisis management, introducing tight banking regulation which helps avoid repeat in the future, and economic reform which gets economy through crisis and helps build sustainable economy in the future. This is also important for FDI confidence.
Build in the message that Iceland has great potential which has not gone away. ‘We have to create a new Wirtschaftswunder’. And as in Germany after the war it will be hard.
Engage the best brains in the world to help in tackling these priorities. Take them to Iceland and give media exposure (We work with the best people in the World). One brain could be George Soros who has long warned about the crisis and what led to them.
Launch and moderate a national debate about the Future of Iceland (the vision thing). This should build on the best of new media, ask the Obama campaign people.
All this will be much easier if the fresh start comes also with a fresh face, the Icelandic Obama. If this is not possible, at least a major reshuffle of the top people. These people need to talk to everyone ‘We need everyone here to get out of the mess’.

In sum:
Fresh start (admit mistakes + 24/7 crisis management + design long term economic policy framework)
Best would be fresh face(s)
Build community sense of ‘Aermel hochkrempeln’
Get the best minds in the world to Iceland to help
National vision debate

This is from far away (Brussels) and may be all too basic. Most is probably already done. If so, ignore.

Good luck,

Andre