The Davos Summit, a top tier World Economic event located in Davos, Switzerland, connected chief officers from major companies, politicians from all around the world and distinguished members of academia. The summit fueled innovative ideas regarding the state of energy.
Extreme weather, failure to act on climate change, and natural disasters topped the list of global risks for 2019.
The topic of clean energy became more discussed with Sir David Attenborough Crystal Award acceptance speech calling for action on climate change, oceans, and biodiversity. Clean energy and climate change prevention were hot topics and were discussed by New Zealand Prime Minister, Jacinda Arden and Prime Minister of the Netherlands, Mark Rutte. Global plans of actions were discussed. Even Japan’s Prime Minister, Shinzo Abe, said climate actions would be a top priority at this year’s G20 and promised that Japan would work towards a globally committed plastic-free ocean.
Veteran Nature Program presenter David Attenborough urged business and political leaders at Davos to provide practical solutions for unlimited clean energy, to prevent climate catastrophe:
“If people can truly understand what is at stake, I believe that they will give permission to business and governments to get on with the practical solutions. And as a species, we are expert problem solvers. We haven’t yet applied ourselves to this problem with the focus that it requires.”
During the summit, a panel titled “The Great Energy Transformation” discussed clean and sustainable energy. The focus was to answer how leaders can move beyond political hurdles to create a clean, affordable and secure energy future. The first solution it to realize that the discussion of clean energy to save the planet is not longer a future problem but should be focused on today. The market is already seeing the impact of the competitiveness of renewables, while the fossil fuel sector is experiencing great uncertainty from a financial point of view.
After much debate whether there should be total abandonment of oil and gas, Ulrich Spiesshofer, CEP of ABB, stated that the ultimate goal is to decouple economic growth from environmental impact. According to Francesco Starace, the key to this process is “the digitalization of the electricity grid to address the demand for efficiency as well as for a large-scale development of e-mobility.” Not only are smarter storage systems needed, but also efficient smart devices for flexible network management.
Sustainability has always been an important interest with increasing sign of global warming and harm to this planet Now countries finally planning on acting on it. The discussions are The Davos Summit is evidence that the world is moving decisively in one direction, towards a future of clean, secure and affordable energy accessible to all.