Introduction of Dr. Hermann Scheer, Chairman of the International Parliamentary Forum on Renewable Energies, Bonn, June 2nd, 2004

Vice-President Lammert, esteemed colleagues from more than seventy countries who are attending this Forum, as I recall, this is only the second example of a parliamentary conference taking place on this type of theme. Parliamentary conferences have been held within the framework of international organizations such as the Inter-Parliamentary Union, but there is only one previous example of an international parliamentary conference on environmental issues taking place outside this framework. In 1990, the US Senate hosted an Interparliamentary Conference on the Global Environment in Washington. It was prepared by a group of US Senators. Vice President Al Gore headed the preparatory group and chaired the conference itself. The Washington conference concluded with a very ambitious and exciting strategy to avert a global climate disaster. I myself attended the conference and helped to draft the final declaration.

From today's perspective, the content of the conference resolution was really quite sensational. And let me say again: it was drafted by US Senators and was then endorsed by a broad majority of participants. The resolution actually called for a 50% reduction in global climate-relevant gases (CO2) by 2010! A few years later, the World Climate Conference was launched. The Kyoto Protocol, which emerged a few years later, contained extremely low reduction commitments compared with the Washington text.

Our experience of the Washington conference brings me to the issue which we considered when drafting the text of our resolution: should we focus on establishing a formal target? Isn't it more sensible to concentrate instead on aspects which are actually aimed at mobilizing renewables in a national and an international context? In my view, genuinely achieving progress is more important than establishing bureaucratic targets. So instead, we are focusing on dynamic measures because we believe that what is needed is a structural shift towards an energy supply for tomorrow which, after many transitional phases, will be based exclusively on renewables.

A shift towards renewables is necessary not only because of the environmental problems. A debate which focuses solely on environmental issues clearly reveals that per head of the population, the industrialized countries consume far more energy than people in the »developing countries* - by a factor of ten or fifteen and sometimes even more. Seen from this perspective, it is primarily the responsibility of the industrialized countries, which produce the most emissions, to set the course towards renewables.

However, we also need to consider the correlation between economic development and renewables. What contribution can renewables make towards more just and equitable social and economic development worldwide - for the countries in the Southern hemisphere or for the transition countries of the former Soviet Union? We can and want to show that renewables improve economic conditions while helping to resolve environmental issues, and that they can also address social and cultural issues more effectively than is possible with nuclear and fossil energies.

We need to take a holistic view of these issues. This is essential, not least, because discussing energy issues solely from a current cost perspective is short-sighted.

Energy is the basis for everything. Without energy, nothing can happen; without it, no life could exist on our planet. And that is why the energy supply issue is the key to every aspect of social development. And it also explains why the question of which energy sources are used in this context is the key to economic, cultural, social and environmental development. Sharpening our awareness of these correlations is essential, especially in a parliamentary debate about renewables.

The German Bundestag's decision to host this Parliamentary Forum was prompted by some measure of pride as well, based on our own successes in legislating on renewables.
This legislation has ensured that although we have less wind than many other countries, Germany nonetheless accounts for almost 35% of the world's wind power capacities. Last year, Germany had almost 25% of the world's photovoltaic installations, even though we do not lie in the world's sunbelt. Since 1 January, a new law has been in force in Germany which we in the Bundestag succeeded in adopting by a broad majority last autumn: it guarantees zero energy tax on all biofuels, thus mapping out a progressive route towards ending our dependency on ever-diminishing oil supplies and opening up new opportunities for agriculture at the same time.

These laws have attracted attention worldwide. They all resulted from parliamentary initiatives. We have thus set an example demonstrating the effectiveness of parliamentary democracy. We want to encourage other parliaments to follow suit.

There is a second reason why parliamentarians in particular are called upon to play a role: renewables generally result in the decentralization of energy supplies, even though the largest proportion of the renewable energy used to generate electricity still comes from major hydropower stations at present.

The »new« renewable energies - a term used by the United Nations since the 1980s -denotes those renewables which move beyond traditional large-scale use of hydro-power: wind power, photovoltaics, solar thermal energy, wave power, and the sustainable use of bioenergy. When we talk about these renewables, we see - if we view the situation systematically - a major structural change compared with the current energy supply.

Energy consumption is always decentralized. However, the production of energy from conventional sources - whether oil, gas, coal or nuclear power derived from uranium - is necessarily concentrated at a handful of locations around the world where primary energy is found. But although it can only be produced at a few sites around the world, it has to meet energy needs all over the world, so the power has to travel long distances. What we have increasingly seen around the world - and this process is still under way - is a decoupling of the regions where energy is consumed from the regions where it is produced. This creates dependencies and uncertainty. If energy becomes scarce, the result is political and economic instability, often leading to energy losses.

Renewables, on the other hand - the »new« renewable energies - are naturally available within the specific geographical environment. There can never be one identical profile for renewables use everywhere because geographical conditions vary. Some countries have more wind; others have more solar radiation; others have natural sources of hydropower; others have favourable conditions for the cultivation of bio-energy sources; some have good opportunities to use wave power, and some - and these have particularly good prospects - have all of these resources.
But what does exist everywhere is the opportunity to generate renewable energy from the naturally available resources. That means harnessing this energy on a decentralized basis, leading to a new energy supply structure. That is also the reason why already, in the countries in which two billion people survive without access to electricity, supplying electricity from solar or wind power is more cost-effective because an electricity supply can be established without large-scale grids. An expensive infrastructure is no longer required.

The mobilization of renewables takes place locally - in other words, in parliamentarians' own constituencies. This is where the new energy culture is emerging. Renewables are therefore a key task for parliamentarians and policy-makers at local and regional level. They must be the driving force in ensuring that the shift towards renewables takes place more swiftly from now on. For on this issue, the world faces a race against time.