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New Energy World magazine logo
New Energy World magazine logo
ISSN 2753-7757 (Online)
Ed Miliband, MP for Doncaster North, sat in chair on stage, in conversation with EI President Juliet Davenport, also sat in a chair on stage Photo: Oliver Dixon Photography/Energy Institute
Ed Miliband, MP for Doncaster North (right), in conversation with EI President Juliet Davenport (left)

Photo: Oliver Dixon Photography/Energy Institute

To understand what makes International Energy Week so compelling, look no further than some of the key speakers on Day One of the 2024 event in late February. New Energy World Features Editor Brian Davis highlights some of the thought-provoking issues expressed.

Controversy was never very far away at International Energy Week 2024. When Jim Skea, Chair of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and a former Energy Institute (EI) President, was asked privately by Malcolm Brinded (also a former EI President) if he was optimistic or pessimistic about the energy transition, his answer was: ‘A bit of both’.

 

Indeed, his keynote kicked off with a bleak picture of ‘losing warm water corals if we don’t change course, while global emissions continue to climb’. On the plus side, Skea noted that the IPCC has identified over 20 countries with sustained reductions in emissions over a decade.

 

Skea emphasised that most of the world’s emissions are now covered by net zero targets for the second half of the 21st century. What’s more, there have been ‘incredible falls’ in the cost of renewables during this period, with now more than 10% of the world’s electricity coming from wind and solar.

 

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