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Second World Conference and Exhibition on Photovoltaic Solar Energy Conversion, Vienna, July 6th to 10th, 1998

"Er ist ein Weltbürger!"
Laudatory Speech of Loretta Schaeffer

For me it is a very great honour to have this role because I first started working in solar photovoltaics, very first at the European Conference in Montreal. That's where I first learned to spell solar photovoltaics and my being there at that time was a sign that the World Bank was strongly interested in this area. But it was at the first World Solar Photovoltaic Conference in Hawaii that there really was a dedicated commitment of the World Bank to photovoltaic development in the developing world. I have just retired and I am satisfied - pleased to know that there is no turning back on that roots for the World Bank. I think it is very fitting that the first World Solar PV Prize is being given to Dr. Hermann Scheer. Conference Chairman Professor Schmid has said for a politician, but t would qualify that: I think it's being given to Dr. Hermann Scheer for political activism, for a basic solar energy philosophy and writings of such that we can all adopt, and for his grassroots organisational achievements.

In fact, I was very curious about the exact criterion when I was asked to do this task, on how one selects a prize winner, since this is the first time this prize is given. And I see something quite simple that might be a guide for issuance for a prize winner.

And so it can be easily remembered and because Americans do this, I think I am concentrating this on three "i's". One of them is insight. And I would define insight as the rational use about the intellect but also the intuition. You cannot get insights unless you listen to both sides of your creativity. And I think another quality would be proven innovation and that I am sure you see at all the prizes. And certainly the third quality would be impact. Insight - innovation -impact.

So, how has Hermann Scheer met these criteria? Most of us know Hermann Scheer for his brilliant "Solar Manifesto". The book paints a very clear relationship between the use of fossil fuels and the key maladies of this 20th century. The arms race, nuclear proliferation, environmental degradation and the appalling decline or danger facing our democratic institutions. But then the "Solar Manifesto" argues an overwhelming case, that true economics incorporate environmental considerations. It characterises energy efficiency as important but it is limited to a vital alternative to delay disaster. And it concludes very persuasively. But the only, only renewable energies offer a sine qua non for the preservation of the democratic institutions and for a liveable world.

How did Hermann Scheer get to write this powerful book in the early nineteen-nineties? Understanding something about his life explains it. He was born in 1944 and he started out on a completely different track. But it was very useful. What did he do? He went to military school. This revolutionary went to military school?! He was qualified as a lieutenant when he finished. When he was a young man he went for sports. He was a swimmer. He had all the rigid discipline and commitment that sports, playing on the German national team, and a military education, give you. He was not a wild and wily artist, he started out like that. And then what happened? It was the early sixties. And Hermann Scheer quit the army. Why did he quit the army? What, let us remember the sixties. He opened his eyes, looked around and he said: "I don't like the arms race and I don't like nuclear arms and the proliferation of armaments. I can't stay here."

So he changed and went to university. He did a big shift. When he went to university what did he do? He started looking at democratic institutions. He studied social activities, the social face of public enterprises and he began noticing that democracy was deeply imperilled in the modern world. And at the same time he worked on his first book. Which was "parties versus citizens". So, he already understood that the political process had disenfranchise becoming base. He became an assistant professor in Stuttgart - which remains his base up to now as a politician - at the university in economics and social science. But in 1976 he did another critical career change. This young man went to become a scientific systems analyst in the Germany's nuclear research center. He walked right into the lion's den. And when he went in there he really saw for four years the perils of the nuclear path.

So that, while being a student he had been elected as leader of the student parliament. So he already knew that he was able to bring people together and he was able to convince people. At this point he began to have very clear ideas -which were: stop the bomb, stop armaments, and watch what happens on nuclear development because of the basic danger to mankind, protect democratic institutions. These were things that were already there in his mind by 1980 when he was elected to parliament. During the time he was in Parliament he wrote the book: "Liberation from the bomb".

But we still don't have the Hermann Scheer that we have here today. What changed him? Well I think what changed him, what changed most of the Europeans here today and what certainly changed last the Americans and I don't know about the Japanese - but the world didn't changed that much Europe did - I think Chernobyl changed him. Because Chernobyl falls in 1986 and we have - in terms of his bio - we have creation of EUROSOLAR in 1988. In 1986 he had been six years in the German Parliament. He had been already a member of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe. But he understood that political change was not going to happen inside that structure only. He had been inside the military, he had been inside the nuclear, he was now inside the political structure. He understood that it was grassroots expansion, that was going to help. And that's where I think he had that intuitive understanding about what renewable energies, what solar energy could offer. So, Chernobyl is 1986, EUROSOLAR is 1988 and the Solar Manifesto he starts writing in 1990. They all fit together.

He has been responsible, for introduction in Europe of feed-in-directives for renewable energy. And right now again he has aimed very closely at the grassroots level looking at a green energy market development.

In conclusion if you look back at what he has done up to now, he has outly demonstrated insight, innovation and worldwide impact, because the book is in many languages. The book for me in the World Bank became my Bible. I'm only sorry that I didn't have it in 1982 and 1983 because my fight inside the World Bank would have been strengthened had I had his arguments. So, I have thought that maybe the way to best characterise the kind of action Hermann Scheer has done is to look at what was said of the beginning of this century by Albert Schweitzer. Albert Schweitzer said: "Truth has no special hour. Its time is now and always and indeed then most truly when it seems most untimely..." ... it sounds very, very paradoxal: "... truth is most needed when it seems most untimely." Dr. Scheer has spoken and given us the solar energy truth loudly and widely at most untimely moments. There is no timely moment for photovoltaics here or anywhere in the world. But this is the time to speak it.

For photovoltaics to develop we need his voice now more than ever. A previous speaker has commented on this beautiful Hofburg palace where we are and I have now been in this beautiful city of Vienna for six days in which I have been surrounded by a language that I don't understand, in spite of my name. Because io parlo italiano, je sais parler francais, I'm okay in Turkish, but I don't speak German. So I would like, for my own satisfaction, to end the laudatio for Dr. Scheer by paraphrasing the famous words of my co-national, President Kennedy.

So first of all I will say - forgive the accent - "Er ist ein Berliner". But more correctly, what I want us to agree on: "Er ist ein Europäer". And - even more important for this community that combines the European, the US and the Asiatic/Pacific PV Conferences: "Er ist ein Weltbürger !