Bonn Symposium 2010: New Sources of Energy – New Conflicts?

The recent Bonn Symposium, held on 01 December 2010, followed the thematic title of: New Sources of Energy – New Conflicts? The event was under the patronage of IHDP’s Executive Director, Dr. Anantha Duraiappah; BMU’s Federal Minister, Dirk Niebel; and BMZ’s Federal Minister, Dr. Norbert Röttgen, although the latter two were unable to attend. Hosted by both the Stiftung Entwicklung und Frieden (SEF) and the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Technische Zusammenarbeit (GTZ), the event was attended by a wide diversity of people ranging from students to professionals, further achieving a relative gender and age balance.

IHDP’s Dr. Anantha Duraiappah gave the opening speech of the evenings discussions. He highlighted the work of IHDP (particularly the IT projects findings in this context) and its move toward the inclusion of human behavior with regard to a changing climate and what it entails for not only renewable energies and current dependencies, but also human well-being. His speech focused on the societal changes needed in order to ensure a sustainable future, further identifying issues of human behavior and values, efficiencies, (in)equities and justice. Significantly, he explored the question of how to move societies toward sustainability. Other presentations were given by Mr. Hyacinth Elayo (ECOWAS), Harald Nietzel (BMU) and Ernst Rauch (Munich Reinsurance Company). Following this, the panelists and Dr. Duraiappah went into a Q&A session with both the moderator and audience. 

The evening’s main attraction was a round-table discussion, which mainly focused on the necessity of renewable energies and importance of good governance in bi-lateral agreements between the developed and developing states. Numerous issues were identified and discussed and ranged from the feasibility of biofuels to provide a climate neutral option for renewable energies, to the potential of large-scale initiatives to propagate a “re-colonization” of host countries (particularly with reference to Africa). Interestingly enough, conflict issues were not discussed at any significant length. This was most likely due to the fact that the evening adopted a somewhat technical stand in view of new sources of energies. In this regard, Ernst Rauch presented a fascinating view of the DESERTEC project, a far reaching vision of the potential of solar energies derived from deserts to supply European and global energy demand.

What is interesting to note though, is that both the audience and other panelists barely received the message of the need for change concerning human values and the environment. At one point, the notion was even dismissed as being, “...unachievable within the needed human response timeframe”. This, as we know, is not the case. Particularly given the latest findings of IHDP’s IT project, which stresses industrial transformation as a societal process vis-à-vis a purely technical response. Ultimately, this provides a clear indication that more work is needed by those engaged in human dimensions research in promoting the social dimension amongst other current/mainstream issues.

In general, the evening was both stimulating and informative, it can only be hoped that any future discussions will take a more inclusive view of the social sciences.