RIO+20 FEATURE: SEVEN ISSUES, SEVEN EXPERTS – ENERGY
New York, Jun 14 2012 5:10PM
Rio+20 Feature: Seven Issues, Seven Experts – Energy
Energy – Timothy Wirth, member of the High-Level Group on Sustainable Energy for All
World leaders, along with thousands of participants from governments, the private sector, non-governmental organizations and other groups will come together next week in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, to take part in the UN Sustainable Development Conference (Rio+20).
The Conference aims to shape how countries and their citizens can reduce poverty, advance social equity and ensure environmental protection to achieve long-term growth.
Seven key areas have been identified by the UN as needing urgent attention: creation of jobs, access to energy, building sustainable cities, ensuring food security and sustainable agriculture, access to water, managements of oceans and disaster readiness.
At the moment, the oceans are facing a number of very serious challenges and those challenges not only affect the environment. They also affect and threaten economic services that depend on oceans.
But what do each of them entail and how can people contribute to a sustainable future?
In our <em>Seven Issues, Seven Experts</em> series, UN officials tell us more about each area and how we can contribute to make our planet more sustainable.
In the second instalment, the UN News Centre spoke with a member of the Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon's High-Level Group on Sustainable Energy for All, the UN Foundation's President, Timothy Wirth, about why sustainable energy is a cornerstone for economic development and why shifting to green energy sources is easier than we think.
<strong>UN News Centre:</strong> How does energy fit into the sustainable development picture?
<strong>Timothy Wirth:</strong> Economic development is one of the UN's two central missions; the other being peacekeeping. But we can't do development without energy. You can't have any type of development in terms of economic growth, job development, manufacturing – just about anything – without energy. And then, over a long period of time, it is not possible to continue the use of energy without a focus on its sustainability. We have to think about sustainable energy.
So, if access to energy is a necessary first step towards any kind of development goals, then sustainable energy becomes the second step, the second route we have to pursue at the UN for reducing poverty, empowering women, providing healthcare and education, plus developing the basic job structure of the economy.
<div id="EmbedPhotoLeft" style="width:200px;"><"/News/dh/photos/large/2012/May/161729-tokelau.jpg" class="lightbox" title="A UN-supported renewable energy project in Tokelau converts solar-generated power to electricity. UN Photo/Ariane Rummery" rel="gallery-default"><img class="Embed" src="/News/dh/photos/2012/May/161729-tokelau.jpg" style="width:180px; height:120px;">
<p class="phtocaption2">A UN-supported renewable energy project in Tokelau converts solar-generated power to electricity. UN Photo/Ariane Rummery</p>
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<strong>UN News Centre:</strong> There are many sources of energy. Where does sustainable energy come from?
<strong>Timothy Wirth:</strong> Energy itself comes from a whole variety of different sources, as you know – oil, nuclear, solar, biofuel, natural gas and so on. Low-carbon energy is the one that is necessary if we are going to stabilize the planet's climate system without catastrophic consequences. Fossil fuels, when burned, create carbon, which goes up into the atmosphere, warming it up, and causing global climate change, which is not sustainable in the long-term. When thinking about long-term energy use, we also have to consider long-term concerns related to our own atmosphere. Thus, the issue of sustainable energy becomes the equation linking energy with atmospheric health.
Solar energy, nuclear energy and wind do not produce carbon unlike fossil fuels like oil, gas and coal. The important mix over a long-term period of time consists of developing energy strategies that combine both non-fossil fuels with fossil fuels, so that we end up with a low-carbon mix overall.
<div id="EmbedPhotoRight" style="width:200px;"><"/News/dh/photos/large/2012/March/03-06-2012cleanenergy.jpg" class="lightbox" title="It is hoped that more rural households in developing countries will be able to get clean renewable energy. Photo: CDM-UNFCCC" rel="gallery-default"><img class="Embed" src="/News/dh/photos/2012/March/03-06-2012cleanenergy.jpg" style="width:180px; height:120px;">
<p class="phtocaption2">It is hoped that more rural households in developing countries will be able to get clean renewable energy. Photo: CDM-UNFCCC</p>
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<strong>UN News Centre:</strong> What do governments need to do to get this energy mix right?
<strong>Timothy Wirth:</strong> Governments have to provide the right structure to encourage lower carbon fuels, and there are lots of ways of doing that. One of them, which has been tried and is working in Europe, is the development of an economic system called a cap-and-trade system, which caps the amount of carbon that can be emitted and then has a pricing mechanism that goes with that.
There are other rules that can be applied. For example, to require that in any utility, a certain percentage of its production comes from renewable fuel sources. It cannot come from oil or gas; so that is a second way of doing it. There are a variety of mechanisms that governments can follow to attempt to lower the intensity of carbon going into the atmosphere and, therefore, to try to salvage our overall environment.
<div id="EmbedPhotoLeft" style="width:200px;"><"/News/dh/photos/large/2012/June/454388-beijing.jpg" class="lightbox" title="Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon visits a Beijing power project producing biogas for electricity. UN Photo/M. Garten
" rel="gallery-default"><img class="Embed" src="/News/dh/photos/2012/June/454388-beijing.jpg" style="width:180px; height:120px;">
<p class="phtocaption2">Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon visits a Beijing power project producing biogas for electricity. UN Photo/M. Garten
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<strong>UN News Centre:</strong> Many of these measures require a regulation of the market. Will this compromise economic growth?
<strong>Timothy Wirth:</strong> It doesn't have to. One can do energy systems that are absolutely consistent with the goal of economic growth. For example, in many, many countries, the increasing amounts of solar energy and wind energy have in fact, by most measures, helped the economy to grow more rapidly than it would if the economy was dependent upon only traditional fossil fuels.
In addition, usually a strategy related to energy includes a major commitment to energy efficiency, to use the energy one already has much more efficiently – which makes, in effect, energy efficiency the most important fuel of all. It becomes the so-called first fuel. So economic development does not have to depend on traditional sources of fossil fuels, but rather can depend upon cleaner fuels which in many situations are even less expensive than traditional fossil fuels.
<div id="EmbedPhotoRight" style="width:200px;"><"/News/dh/photos/large/2010/09-20-unep.jpg" class="lightbox" title="A family in Mongolia using a solar panel to generate power for their tent. UN Photo/E. Debebe" rel="gallery-default"><img class="Embed" src="/News/dh/photos/2010/09-20-unep.jpg" style="width:180px; height:120px;">
<p class="phtocaption2">A family in Mongolia using a solar panel to generate power for their tent. UN Photo/E. Debebe</p>
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<strong>UN News Centre:</strong> Why
Jun 14 2012 5:10
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