WEC Inside 

   

1–30 November 2013 

Welcome to WEC Inside, your exclusive briefing from your WEC network

News 

The significant interest in last month’s World Energy Congress reflected global concerns about today’s shifting energy agenda.

The flagship event of the World Energy Council, which took place in Daegu, South Korea from 13 to 17 October, gathered more than 7500 participants from 123 countries. These included 270 speakers from 68 countries, who discussed the most urgent energy challenges in an extensive four-day pro-gramme consisting 62 sessions, four community roundtables, and eight side events.

Notably, 52 ministers from 38 countries at-tended the Congress, which also hosted a public ministerial dialogue with eight government leaders, plus a closed Ministerial Roundtable for select ministers and heads of development banks.

The Congress hosted three other exclusive ‘community roundtables’: World Energy Council Insights, World Energy Leaders’ Summit, and the Global Electricity Initiative. As with the Ministerial Roundtable, these dialogue spaces provided an ‘invitation only’, peer-to-peer discussion of critical issues for the respective energy communities.

Korean President Park Geun-hye and Prime Minister Jung Hong-won attended the event in two separate visits. Having both heads of govern-ment attend the events shows Korea’s significant endorsement of the event, said WEC Secretary General Christoph Frei, as protocol would normally have either leader attending one given event.

22nd World Energy Congress reflects concerns about shifting energy agenda

The Congress was supported by 44 sponsors, 248 exhibitors, and 46 media partners. More than 450 representatives from the world’s media covered the Congress, representing leading publications, news agencies, broadcasters, trade and specialist press. Major exhibition highlights included a Russia Day event and the China and UAE pavilions.

Mrs Marie-José Nadeau, the newly inaugurat-ed Chair of the World Energy Council, said the significant attendance reflected the growing com-plexities confronting the energy sector. She added: “Our immediate challenge is to find a way of distil-ling the outcomes from all these sessions into a series of meaningful lessons or messages that we can take home to our respective stakeholders.”

1–30 November 2013 WEC Inside 1

What are your key takeaways from the 2013 Congress?

The Congress has been outstanding in terms of its programme and attendance, with 7500 delegates, including our 93 country member committees, 52 ministers from around the world, close to 100 sessions, and 270 speakers. This is truly remarka-ble – and we owe it to WEC's London team and to the Korean Organising Committee.

I think that the word – the buzzword of the Congress – is ‘trilemma’. I firmly believe that our trilemma study provides a simple and effective way to frame the debate. Energy access, energy secu-rity and environmental mitigation are the three key pillars in which we can discuss the most pressing problems facing energy and find consensus on appropriate solutions. I hope that we can bring this initiative one step further in Istanbul.

Interview 

What are your key tasks on the path to Istanbul 2016?

As always, we will work closely with the Organising Committee. We are fortunate that the Turkish Energy Minister was in Daegu, meeting with influ-ential CEOs and other ministers. Istanbul, we must remember, is a bridge between Asia, Europe and the Middle East and we must take advantage of that extraordinary context. Once the Congress theme is agreed upon, we will be promoting the Congress with the view to attract as much attention and as many delegates as possible.

Give us an idea of your strategy and your vision for the next three years as Chair of the World Energy Council.

As Chair of the World Energy Council, three objec-tives will drive my action until our 2016 Congress.

Like all representative organisations, there are always areas in which we need to grow and be-come stronger. My first objective is to increase the WEC’s presence in countries that are not represent-ed or where we have under-representation of key stakeholders in both our membership and governance structure. I know I can count on the support of the co-chair and regional vice chairs to achieve this goal.

My second objective is to work on our inclusive-ness and diversity. Few, if any, global organisations are as inclusive and diverse as WEC, both in terms of regional representation and scope of our membership. That does not imply that we cannot

Marie-José Nadeau has just taken the helm as the first woman chair in the WEC’s 90-year history. She talks about her vision, the 2013 Congress, and the path towards Istanbul 2016.

News continued on page 2 ...

Among the critical issues is the need to help close the gap between the availability and the need for energy. “Global energy supplies are plentiful … Yet, 1.2 billion people remain without access to energy.”

Mrs Nadeau made the remarks as she took the reins as WEC Chair at the Congress Closing Cere-mony.

Christoph Frei, Secretary General of the World Energy Council, said the other top energy issues are the lack of a globally recognised carbon framework, the global recessionary context,

Ministers, heads of institutions and development banks, and WEC officials met at the Congress

Marie-José Nadeau is Chair of the World Energy Council.

Interview continued on page 3 ...