From Fossil Energy to Renewable Energy (video)

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Latvia Needs to Fill the Gap The globally known researcher, Katherine Richardson, read her lecture within the presidential lecture series “Readings by World Leaders” organized in cooperation between the Presidential Chancery and the University of Latvia. “I am very satisfied that today we can present our regular lecture in the lecture series by world leaders, and that the emphasis is placed on problems, which we as world citizens should be concerned about,” said the President Valdis Zatlers in his welcoming speech, mentioning that Latvians, despite their daily habits, see themselves as a green country with a green mindset. “If we want to take over green philosophy as our core philosophy, we need a plan.” The President emphasized that Latvia needs a long-term plan, not only a plan for a couple of days or years, but the plan that would run for more than ten years. Currently Latvia has no such plan, especially for power industry, despite the discussions in the government and social activities. V. Zatlers added: „In fact, we do not have a plan even for the next week, not to mention the following years. There is a gap we must fill as soon as possible.” Thus, President Valdis Zatlers asked Katherine Richardson, the Chairman of Denmark’s Climate Commission, to deliver a lecture. This decision was made thanks to her ambitious plan set in Denmark’s Commission and designed up to 2050, comprising not only ideas, but also activities, strategy, as well as suggestions to policymakers and the government, how to reach the set goals and how to develop Denmark as a green country not only from the point of ideology, but also inspiring the society to live in accordance with green nature rules. Will there be Enough for Nine Billion? In the opening part of the lecture Katherine Richardson, reflecting the historical dialogue between science and society, referred to the British nature scientist Charles Darwin’s evolution theory, which in the 19th century aroused tense opposition in the society and challenged the paradigm not only in human evolution, which was then based on the Bible, but also in economics, which was greatly based on the relationship between the landlord and slave. It seemed unappropriate for these days; however, as time passed the society accepted the new paradigm. Thus, Katherine Richardson emphasized the need to perceive and accept the fact – the hypothesis about the exhaustion of fossil energy during next generations – and only after the fact is accepted, there will follow changes in mentality and lifestyle.  „One of the biggest challenges of the 21st century is to find and develop a way, how to distribute the world’s resources to 9 billion people around the world,” said K. Richardson, analysing the possible location places of demand and supply balance points. „It means that in future a successful business model will be the one using resources in an efficient way.” The studies prove that, although more and more funds are invested in finding and producing resources, less and less resources are being found from year to year. Geopolitical Risks There is no point in analysing data on climate change, if only to find explanations, causes and point to the „guilty parties”, who share responsibility for these climate changes. Nowadays the task of science is to be proactive, namely, to act for better future, taking into consideration the available information and data collected by scientists. The aim is at least to decrease, if not to eliminate,  the risks resulted from the activities by previous generations. The Green Economics Expert, by publishing charts of climate change, states that nowadays it is not anymore possible to simply migrate from climate change affected places to more favourable places without any geopolitical consequences, as it has been observed in history of civilization. Moreover, the world’s population will reach 9 billion inhabitants by 2050. Besides, one of the topical problems of climate change is communicating the issue not only with the society, but also with the government. „Governments often treat climate change  as an environmental issue only, and not always include it in the political agenda,” says K. Richardson, expressing her belief that sometimes authorities engage themselves in this topic only if a certain environmental issue and the respective voting may affect the current situation in the country. It means that governments very often lack political motivation to make decisions, by estimating the global risks. From Fossil to Renewable In 2008, being aware of rapid climate change, rise in energy prices and frequent fluctuations, as well as knowing that the greatest part of oil and natural gas resources are concentrated only in some countries and directly reflected in the world’s economy, ten independent experts came together in Denmark with an aim to form a message how to reach a transition from fossil to renewable energy in Denmark by 2050, which soon has to become as a detailed action plan. The Danish Climate Commission has two central goals. Firstly, to gain independence in power industry, by refusing from use of fossil energy resources, namely, oil, natural gas and coal in Denmark. The goal is grounded by the fact that only some of the countries have major control over the fossil energy resources, as a result the other countries are more risk affected due to geopolitical factors. Instead Denmark expects to develop local renewable energy sources, providing both green energy and independence. Secondly, Denmark has a relatively ambitious goal to remarkably decrease the amount of emission by 2050. „It should be taken into account that by 2050 also the consumption of energy will increase, which in turn causes the necessity for additional resources,” explained K. Richardson. Despite the growing demands, the Danish experts have calculated and are sure that, even if the demand for produced energy doubles, Denmark will still be able to produce a reasonable amount of energy, and preserve its independence from fossil energy resources. Thus, experts say that in the next forty years Denmark has all opportunities to become one of the first countries in the world, which, reacting to critical issues of power energy and rapidly changing situation, will reorientate from the use of fossil energy resources to green energy system.