Today the International Enery Conference 2009 started in Vienna covering the topics around Securing Sustainable Policies and Investments’ . The conference is very well attended (I think there are a lot more than the proposed 500 participants, I do not see a single emtpy chair in the conference room) and we already listened to the keynotes, given by

• Brigitte Öppinger-Walchshofer, Managing Director, Austrian Development Agency, Austria
• Detlof von Winterfeldt, Director, IIASA
• Kandeh Yumkella, Director-General, UNIDO
• Srgjan Kerim, Special Envoy on Climate Change to the United Nations Secretary-General and
• Rajendra Pachauri, Director General, The Energy and Resources Institute (TERI), India and Chairman, Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC)

“The current global financial and economic crisis must be used to our advantage to bring about a green energy revolution. This conference was designed to provide a solid framework that would show the way towards a low-carbon global ‘green economy’ powered by ‘green industry’. Promoting domestic and international policies that encourage green investment in the next decade should be a major priority for a climate deal to be concluded in Copenhagen,” said UNIDO Director-General, Kandeh K. Yumkella.

He was referring to the United Nations climate change conference taking place in Copenhagen in December where countries are expected to “seal the deal” on a successor agreement to the Kyoto Protocol on greenhouse gas emissions targets.

Rajendra Pachauri of India, Chair of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, which shared the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize with Al Gore, said that energy remained the “missing Millennium Development Goal”. “Providing an adequate supply of energy to the poor should be a key priority. Without it there can be no talk about eliminating poverty in the world,” added Pachauri.

Austrian Foreign Minister, Michael Spindelegger, reminded that the conference marked the tenth anniversary of the Global Forum on Sustainable Energy, which facilitates dialogue between key players and encourages public-private cooperation in the field of sustainable energy.

He also underlined the fact that Austrian science, technology institutions and companies are known to be at the leading edge of renewable energies and energy efficiency. The Austrian Development Cooperation has been supporting renewable energy projects in developing countries for many years.

“We are facing a convergence of challenges that require a fundamental transformation of energy systems, ‘business-as- usual’ solutions are not an option,” said IIASA Director, Detlof von Winterfeldt. “The magnitude, pace, and scale of the impact of climate change is greater than predicted even as recently as a couple of years ago – the need to respond to this change is urgent.”

He said it was untenable that today 2.4 billion people were without access to modern energy services. GEA early findings suggest that the cost of providing modern energy services for all is not only achievable but affordable in the medium term, if the political will exists.

“Current investment in energy is in the order of $US350billion per annum; over $US100billion of this investment is in renewable energy. Whilst investment has been steadily increasing, the reality is that a three-fold increase is needed. We have an opportunity in the several stimulus packages introduced by many countries in response to the global financial and economic crisis,”
added von Winterfeldt.

At the moment the second session on ‘An Integrated Energy Agenda Beyond 2020′ is going on and some really interesting presentations are given.

You are interested in it? Well, nothing easier than listening to the presentations. UNIDO set up a live video stream.