very critical time, time to sit down and talk the the in the me or i don't wealth into all of the parts. much of the 20th century, access to oil and gas was one of the chief drivers of geo politics, healing conflicts and charging alliances, is they fight against climate change with small countries to trade, carbon for alex chunk. what will be shifting energy balance due to the balance of power? well, to discuss that and now joined by angela. welcome to the secretary general and

sealed on the world energy council. dr. wilkinson. it's great to talk to you. thank you very much for finding the time. it's a pleasure, it's lovely to be here in saint petersburg and that now every now and then the international community comes up with certain bosworth that per political speeches . and right now it's an energy transition. the replacement of fossil fuels with renewables for tristan generation. how far along are we into this process? there has been many energy transitions. we happen to be in a certain era of energy transmission, which is the shift from fossil fuels to renewable energy. if you've been previous transitions, we could think about the transition from biofuels would already we bend oregon, and then we discovered coal, coal safe, the foreign when we found oil oil safe the whale. and now we're in an area where we're trying to save the planets. we want to be able to use energy and have better lives, but also to live on healthy planet and. and the challenge is the energy. it's the

emissions of carbon dioxide or other greenhouse gases that we're trying to manage. and as many different ways of doing that. so transition has begun in transition and it's proceeding along many different routes and half way. and how far along are we into this process? i read only in the beginning stage or somewhere, let's say, because many countries are talking now about the carbon is ation horizon. i think 75 percent of them have already said certain goals doesn't mean that we are pretty much advanced into richer if we, i mean the, the energy system has been comp and i think with the cheaper in producing less carbon for more energy for centuries. but what we're trying to do with accelerates the paste the bat, fine to say that we need to be below 2 degrees, homing on from pre industrial time. so we try and work out then. this is how much carbon that could be used or put into the atmosphere. what does that mean for

energy use? and i'm so the, the challenge is to find ways of view, sanitary, walked, emitting greenhouse gases. not speaking about acceleration because this whole discussion about climate change. junior is not only urgency, but also a lot of i would say, and the sensual anxiety there is a lot of do they talk and the deadlines for saving the planet, you know, just changing how much of russia is warranted or even, you know, good in discussions on climate change? well i, i would encourage all societies to avoid politics of fear for future because i think it brings out the work behaviors and everybody. the 3 phase, if we looked at 30 years ago when we were talking about climate change, we would be talking about temperature re price is about to $12.00 degrees centigrade. and we've already managed to move that down to possibly 2 degrees,

a 1.5 degrees centigrade challenges. we still have a long way to go because the population is still growing and people need more energy and with more energy come more emission. so the question is, how do we use more energy but less the mission and we're not there yet. we're still in a way that says we would get to more than 2 degrees, boring. but there's lots of different initiatives happening, lots of innovation and government companies, communities case a started to declare these different targets. i think we're in this area of what i would call target some timeline. it's going to be followed by a period of roadmap. and i come from the world energy council, which are the community a route built. you can have the best plan in the world. but actually the best road has to be built. a lot of people talking about i was essential, dangers of climate change are flying in personal job. whereas millions of people

around the world still have to gather would to cook their dinners. i heard you use the term energy justice. how does that factor into this whole, these scores on energy transition? so in a well, just $7000000000.00 plus people. the reality is that it nearly a 1000000000 people lack any access to any form of modern energy. they don't have any electricity at all. but 3 and a half 1000000000 people lack access to clean cooking. and if you're who does the cooking it women. so if you can't have clean cooking you you okay for and you have all the air pollution, you have a shorter life. so energy justice is about how do we provide quality energy access to everybody everywhere so that they can live better lives and how do we do that? i mean, why should we start with carbon? let's say, i mean and permanent, the most immediate energy source for many,

the disadvantage populations around the world. why should we start smith, demonizing fossil fuels, rather than, let's say, asking the most privileged ones to give up on some of that luxury? well, it's a one size fits all solution. you need all, you need people to be more energy efficient. those have got lots of energy, consuming, lots of energy. we need them to be responsible about how you make them to be responsible. governments can make people be responsible for people in the government, the most privileged and they are, they're the ones who leave the, the biggest footprint, carbon footprint, they're talking about those issues, but they're not changing bad behaviors. they want the other somebody else to do that. well, i think we can all change, but we can all adopt better behaviors. i mean, the difference is if you live in a country where you have no energy, then you, there's a different conversation about what needs to be done. and if you live in a country that has lots of energy and it's all based off of you for this new single,

new, same starting point, right? if i take africa, one of the cheapest way of getting energy to people who live in the countryside in rural community, is to give them a solar panel and a mini grid. and that will help them provide some basic access cheaply. but it wouldn't help them with clean cooking, and it wouldn't help them with industrialization about going to need or a centralized power system. so they're either going to use. com and you can, well they can to, you've got with some form of carbon reduction on it. so that the challenges to move away from this conversation of them or this versus that and think that it's about we and how we fix these solutions together. i want to ask you about the recent electricity collapse in texas, where millions of people were left for 4 days without. he'd been lied and at least 30 people died because that's,

that's an interesting question. whether it's some sort of a backup system. also based backup system should continue to exist. i wonder if this whole thing changed. the way you think about those issue. tech has been remarkable in increasing the amount of renewable electricity in it system. and when it at experienced an extreme weather event. it's also in texas, texas has its own system. it doesn't want to be integrated within the rest of the united states. but for historical issue and the challenge of why so many people were affected. it was poor and phone rural people who died if because the mark, if you just leave it to the market alone, the market goes to have a pay the highest price. and when you got very little electricity, the price goes up very high and people can't afford it. so for the last 10 years, we've been developing what's called the energy tried them or index, and it measures of performance of governments and how they managed their energy systems. so we look at energy security, energy affordability, and equity,

and environmental sustainability. and we encourage government to learn from each with each other about how they can do better. and texas could look at that. we can take that down to the state level. we can take it to the city level. so we can encourage government and we can encourage citizens to hold government to account about how their energy systems are performing. as far as i understand, one of the factors and what happened in texas and power outage was wrong. whether in demand assumptions, because people simply underestimated how call they could get how widespread they do and demand could become. and this is just a tax problem. we are seeing extreme weather conditions all around the world right now. isn't a risk to rush food be they had with a changing the energy balance while the ground conditions are also changing?

predictably, their potential risks with huge, quick over change. that's the way in which human being to benefit what we weigh against the risk. so the challenge is not just to transition the energy system, but still in a way where we get clean, affordable, and reliable. so you want resilience. obviously, we want guarantees and not nothing gives you guarantees. but as you said before, there were many previous power transitions or energy transitions around them. but they always, you know, happens on their own pace. and when it's, when that piece is natural, you know, that gives you some sort of a hatching. i mean, always to be all, le, walking into the unknown, but if the pace is moderate, then you can make adjustments as you go. you're advocating and many people in the world are advocating in needed very urgent action. and that i was supposed increase his risks of certain possibilities that we still cannot account for. i'm not

advocating a pace of change which has edge into media. i'm not advocating for pace of change, which has cerebral to society. i'm saying that we, we don't have any choice, we're going to have to move cost or if we don't want to, if we continue business as usual pace of change, we will end up in a, a warm well, which is bad for everybody. but we can't say, if we can say 20502060, we want to get to climate. you're trying to see then we have to say, how do we do that? and the how, if the real determinant of what's affordable clean and what so she job. so there's no one to move away to the future that right for everybody to tease need different options. so some to some african variable to you guys. so it's not going to be, it doesn't produce hardly any carbon emission, but it doesn't have enough energy for anybody. so it needs to get to 2050 and be climate utopia in a way where it can use more gas,

more nuclear and more renewable. and it's not a question of either or the question of and if we want to go further together and we want to go fast and further together, we need more degrees of freedom, the less degrees of climate change. and so we need more options. now, i heard you say ones that if you want to talk about anything other than renewables, you are the devil. and that's probably a problem. and i think there's some countries including russia where, you know, the pace of change is a little bit slower for economic and political reasons as well as cultural ones. but do you think it may become easier for you and others to look at the problem in more or present this problem to politicians, to the world? community more detailed without presenting renewables as the only option is the

only moral option. because sometimes the, this whole discussion seems to be very much focused on on one source advantage. well, i would agree with you. i think the energy leadership landscape has become more crowded, more fragmented, and more polarized. next october in st. petersburg will run for world energy congress, the 25th world energy congress, and it's on energy for humanity. i represent the world oldest world energy community. this is the community that since 923 has worked on energy for peace, energy for prosperity. and now we work on energy for people in planet. how do we get a more inclusive? how do we get a more affordable, clean and socially just energy transition pathways? we don't, i talk about the race to be around this new winner in a race to say it right there, or race to, to 0. and we've got to make sure that the way we have this conversation allows more

space to talk about renewables and friends. you know, we can't gala renewable unless we use more than gas. dr. wilson. so we have to take a very short break right now. we will be back in just a few moments state you me to join me every thursday on the alex simon show. and i'll be speaking to guess in the world, the politics sport. business. i'm show business. i'll see you then. me the me

ah, welcome back to the park with angela wilson from the secretary general and see you all the world energy council, dr wilkinson. we are recording this interview in russia, which has benefited tremendously from traditional energy sources from fossil fuels . and it is sometimes presented in western media as oppositional or even disruptive when it comes to renewables. they think that's true. have you seen an example supplies behavior? i think russia is a major resource holders. that's pretty cool. it's got lots of oil. it's got lots of gas, it's, it has lots of technology around nuclear. it has lots of technology around hydrogen, moving into all these different frontiers of the new energy future. i think it's important to think about what energy future we're aiming for. when we used to talk about energy in the 19th century, we used to talk about supply side with what we were trying to do. we were trying to

find how could we find more energy in the well to give it to more people these days, we're worried that if we have abundance penetrate, we might have not enough planning. right? so the differences, now we are in energy abundance changes to compensation. russia like other countries are looking to prepare for a customer centric climate neutral, abundant energy future that changes the economics of oil and gas. it's not just all about oil and gas. it provides new cause a technology innovation. this is the country that, that put a man in space docking bay. i can't believe that there isn't a lot of technology innovation going on, and i'm waiting to hear what the next big thing to come out of. rochelle, i think, is not defensive about even exploring oil gas at least for the foreseeable future. in fact, it's actively looking for new fields and building new pipelines, just as other fossil fuel producers. and what's interesting is that the united

states, as one of the leaders in renewable, is also pretty dollars in undermining conventional energy projects. don't you think that's an indication that neither side believes that oil and gas, they, the number you know, the amount of energy, emotional, political energy they're putting into those new projects, isn't that? and just of that, they still believe that on to some extent, traditional fossil fuels also have a future bullet, talk about the energy system rather than the politics of the energy. because if i point out the reality and we might understand why there's still some development today in the world energy system, 20 percent one, electrified off that 157 percent is renewable electrification. that means that

a large part of the energy system is not electric. and even if you look at all the best roadmaps, they will tell you that by 2050, we might have got electrification up to half of the energy uses for this new doubt . but even though we're trying to get to climate, you're trying to t, we're still having to produce more energy. so i would like just to think that it's not energy, but the problem is the emission for the problem. and that's what we're offering. that's what governments have been going to be held accountable for the emission before debility and the equity. know the supply economics. and it also depends on how you calculate. i know that there are some experts who believe that we should take into account not only emissions that are taking place in the june quotation, but rather rather the emissions that are going into satisfying our needs anything you consider the consumption level in the developed world. even,

even if you know the good that they're consuming is produced, how the world, the way they are so contributing to those emissions on the other side of the globe . other ways to factor all of that. and because if it's, i think it's easier for wealthy people to feel good about, you know, driving a hybrid car or an electric car and feel good about themselves. still good about, you know, protecting mother earth. you know, the batteries for that star was produced. you know, how the world way in, in very, very dirty condition. you know, a, you know, in the, this is the general i usually in the detail. i agree with you, but i'm also from the break building community, not the road, not to be the key. i'm not sending the target. i'm the i'm, i represent a community of people who change and manage energy systems across, well, they do that in a way whether all the make it clean,

affordable and reliable. so i can look at story from peru, from stories from india, from story from different. but let's, let's look at the story from the united kingdom and the united states, because i think that message is not resonating. now that it's not only about how much we're meeting job graphically. it's also about how much we are consuming county. so the climate change issue without fundamentally thinking about our own lifestyle, even though we don't know, i agree, that's why we have a platform that we need to get to the 90 percent pollution, not the 2 percent commission. and we're not going to be able to do that with only thinking about the supply side that we've got to prepare for this customer centric climate neutral energy future. we're going to find demand solution, and there are some remarkable stories from around the world. so it's not impossible to do, it's just that we spend so much time talking about technology and investment. we forget that what's really going to make competition work is involving more people

in creating solution that is suitable for that situations in lifestyle. and i said, i get, i go into international form and i'm very pleased to see that we've got timelines and target. but i'm very aware that no blueprint guarantees the future of society. it's the implementation of the blueprint while you find out whether it works or not, or how to make it work. so we're road building community and we'll build different roads of different shapes and sizes, but naval more 90 percent of the population to get clean energy. now let's talk about all those different roads and how they're structured because energy has always been synonymous with our not just electricity power, but political power. and as the energy equation is being received in bound to have some sort of an impact on international politics, on how various countries relate to one another. have you given any thought?

do you think it's going to make a world a safer place on the country? and more contentious, like to say we were founded at the community in an area where there was a concern about energy for pete. if any governments developed for the whole system didn't think about societies or about the effects of pool, then we would end up in a very different well. so we don't have in 1923, just after and influenza pandemic. and just before the great depression, talking about energy for humanity, 100 years later, we're still talking about and we'll be talking about it for, i guess another few 100 i'm moving it forward, right? so. so the question is, yes, but the politics of energy changing, it's no longer all about oil and gas. what's happening if you're getting a more multi polar politics going on internationally? you're getting a much more centralized conversation around and change this the nature of o comment to involve more people for it's getting messier that creates more complicated coordination challenges. and for that, we have to,

we quit society business system government to what to get the better to achieve. one of the big players in the renewable sector is china. it controls much of the production chain from mining rare earth materials all the way to contribute to cables. and there is there, there is a lot of concern in the developed parts of the world about empowering china, but in a ways to bind, if you want to push or have the renewable sector, you will have to and benefiting china, economic which, which of these 2 challenges, climate change or and empower china. do you think concerns western worlds more? i don't name. i think it probably varies from country to country, but it's not what concerns me. what concerns me is that we're moving out of an era

where energy futures were determined by technology and money and into an energy future where they're going to be determined by societies and demand. what's in dr. wilkinson? i mean, it's always going to be determined by both. i mean as much as we want to believe in the human spirit. you know, the history of humanity and jazz is not always the goodwill and the people's intentions. determine, be in the flow of history and power will always remain power both as a resource for, you know, living our lives, and as, as an influence. but a, when you move on to an era that's defined by the gas to fossil fuel, into an area that's designed by more abundant and diverse sources of energy, the power, the value is moving closer to the end user. that's a different take. so i'm not saying it's about goodwill and being nice to each other. i'm saying the reality is, the value generation is moving closer to the end use that,

that gives you more power. we thing a shift in power in energy. now, any solution always creates a problem. that's the way sine develops. one of the major logical issues associated with renewables is the problem of storage. you know, how much do you store? how much do share with your neighbors? do you think we have reached the point where we can really have enough trust in one another in our neighbor and, you know, not only internationally but even domestically. we mentioned to texas example. and it's a good example of, you know, not even lack of trust for wanting to, you know, to secure everything yourself. how much, how much is the impediment to the kind of philosophy that you try to spread? i think i see

a lot more country of having conversations about the need for regional cooperation, regional cooperation for gas grades. one is regional cooperation for electricity quit or hydro electric scheme. that's always the challenge of the reality of that. you know, the question is when things go wrong, who can manage the system in this course crisis. what we've seen is societies want more local control. so we're seeing more community. what we saw is the lack of trust than the failure of previous agreements, even though the most basic thing was we live in this. they were low trust. i think we have low trust. but i think if we, if we, if we fail to think about the fact that every trusted only local when we company local society, we wouldn't have all the benefits of progress but have come from being able to trust. so i think to thought you have to work on more self sufficiency and more cooperation. i don't think it's an either or i think i'm can i ask you the last

question? for the most part we've been talking about the quality of energy. the source is derived from, but there is also an issue of the quantity of energy demand is projected to increase dramatically can be realistically address the issue of climate change without thinking about how much energy we can. i think we have to attend the demand fight. like you said, one of the supply side, the system has pieces. we have to think the fact that the ways in which we using energy is changing and who's using an engine changing. i think we have to stop thinking of renewables versus or gas versus the future. manage is going to be more diverse on the supply side. you said the going to be very different as well. the situation slope clear very differential. and what we've got to do with before to move away from this mentality that we know what's best for people that locally clean is good, but it's globally dirty and unfair. we're gonna have to connect these don't between global and local between those that happen, those that don't have and between clean,

affordable and just what that just means before to move away from this linea and narrow mindset and work and integration and cooperation. and the only way to do that is communities, because the government alone can't do it, community take the whole community to change the entire energy as well. and non linear thinking is the hardest chair, a challenge for humanity in my opinion, but we have to leave it there. thank you very much for talking to us. has been great pleasure. it's been a pleasure to be here and thank you for the conversation. think it well and thank you for watching. i hope to see you again next week was apart from me, the me

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