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High oil price renews interest in alternative energy sources

High oil price renews interest in alternative energy sources
By Fiona Harvey, Environment Correspondent
Published: March 15 2005 02:00 / Last updated: March 15 2005 02:00

The high oil price is fuelling greater interest in renewable energy technologies and energy efficiency, a senior US State Department official said yesterday.

"We have in fact been looking at diverse approaches [such as] cleaner, more efficient ways of using energy, investments in renewable energy and investments in hydrogen," said the official.

The US is expected to discuss its investments in renewable energy tomorrow at an international conference in London of energy and environment ministers from 20 countries. The conference will consider methods of reducing reliance on fossil fuels, which create the greenhouse gases that cause climate change.

The conference will also highlight the business opportunities of investing in environmentally sound industries.

Gordon Brown, the UK chancellor of the exchequer, will say that environmental protection need not come at the expense of economic growth, echoing the views of Tony Blair, prime minister, who has made climate change a priority, along with Africa, for the UK's chairmanship of the G8 this year.

Other speakers will include Liu Jiang, vice chair of China's National Development and Reform Commission; Jacques Dubois, chairman of Swiss Re's American Holding Corporation; and Claude Mandil, executive director of the International Energy Agency, which last week advocated energy conservation and renewable energy to cope with the rapid rise in oil prices.

Governments including the US and some developing nations have argued that lowering dependence on fossil fuels by capping emissions of carbon dioxide would carry an unacceptable economic cost.

But tomorrow's conference will make the economic case for investment in low-carbon technologies such as wind and solar energy, and greater efficiency in the use of fossil fuels, such as recycling the heat from power stations for heating buildings.

Patricia Hewitt, the UK's secretary of state for trade and industry, said: "Deploying renewable energy, developing clean coal technology ... will not only help reduce greenhouse gas emissions, but also create jobs. The round table is the first chance energy and environment ministers have had to work out the best way of combining economic growth and energy needs with the need to reduce emissions."

However, the US is expected to hold firm to its opposition to discussing the future of the UN-brokered Kyoto protocol on climate change. The current provisions of the treaty, which bind developed nations to reducing their carbon dioxide emissions, expire in 2012. Last week the EU issued its targets for the second stage of the treaty.

Though the US has refused to ratify the treaty, it remains a signatory to the agreement, giving it the right to participate in discussions on it. But the State Department official said yesterday: "We believe that rather than focusing on future commitments we should focus on implementing policies that we . .. and others are taking to address climate change."

At a related conference on Thursday and Friday, environment and development ministers from the G8 nations will meet in Derbyshire, northern England.

They will examine what can be done to help poorer regions adapt to the increased droughts, storms and floods expected from climate change.


LINK: http://news.ft.com/cms/s/d7e3d3de-94f9-11d9-89c8-00000e2511c8.html