2007 Series 3 Number 10 Page 8
Energy and Climate Narratives in Europe.
A Chance for Enhanced EU-Canada Relations.
Matthias Hopfner, Ambassador, Embassy of the Federal Republic of Germany.
In February 2007, Ambassador Hopfner gave a speech to a lunch meeting of CACOR in Ottawa. In it, he stated that, from his perspective, climate change was already a reality. Referring to the well-known Stern report, the Ambassador said we were likely to lose 20% per year from gross domestic product (GDP) in Western countries. With the ever-increasing need for economic growth, which requires ever more energy, it would be a great challenge to obtain desired energy without the current levels of greenhouse gas emissions. He emphasized that current thinking in Germany, at the time, was that zero economic growth cannot and will not be the answer. Instead, he felt that more innovation and better integration of the economy and the environment (ecology) could be made to fit the bill. He said that we need a new industrial revolution, one in which the is a diversity of energy sources (via energy system transformation) and
The Ambassador concluded by reporting that Achim Steiner, the executive director of the UN Environment Program, said: “The public should not sit back and say there’s nothing we can do. Anyone who would continue to risk inaction will, on the basis of the evidence presented here, one day in the history books be considered irresponsible.”
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