Sydney 2004

Youth declaration

Mr. Chairman, distinguished guests and fellow congress delegates.

 

Over 100 young energy professionals and academics from 36 countries have come together this week to present their work and discuss their ideas. This is certainly one of the largest and best organised Youth Symposiums to be staged at a World Energy Congress. We would like to thank the organisers and sponsors for making this possible. We, the youth delegates at this World Energy Congress, see that the tide is changing. It is clear now that there is an urgent need to take action. We have developed a statement of our beliefs. We believe that there is no universal solution to the sustainability challenge and that there are different solutions for different communities and nations. We believe that there needs to be a shared global vision, but goals and actions need to be developed and implemented at a local level. However, we believe that the responsibility for doing this is a shared one. We recognise that developing and industrialised countries have different priorities. For developing countries, accessibility and availability are core objectives. For industrialized countries, acceptability is the greatest challenge. We believe that these differing objectives can be achieved without compromising the shared global vision. We have a vision for the future. Governments, institutions, and industry leaders must define and commit to short and long term goals and targets that will guide decision making, align and co-ordinate global efforts, span generations and political cycles, and provide greater certainty for business planning and investment. We acknowledge that this is not easily done, but the time for excuses is over. Climate change is real and significant action must be taken now. A third of the world's population still don't have access to adequate energy. And energy security is an increasingly important issue. We need to be specific with our goals and targets and we need to establish solid and realistic plans to achieve those targets. We need to deliver efficient energy services, particularly in developing countries. We need to address energy waste in industrialised countries. And we need education to enable people to make informed decisions. We have defined specific challenges for ourselves and for today's decision makers, both in government and in industry. We, as the young, accept the responsibility to enact change within our own spheres of influence. To facilitate this, we propose to establish local and global networks of young energy professionals to help identify and address local and global sustainability challenges. We call on the World Energy Council to help us to do this. We challenge industry, especially those that are represented here today, to be innovative and proactive in finding ways to deliver energy sustainability and profitability at the same time. In particular, we challenge you to:

• put energy sustainability in your weekly agendas;
• make energy sustainability a key factor in your business planning and investment decisions;
• invest in energy education in your local area; and
• search out and implement energy efficiency opportunities in your own operations, and then show them off to your customers and the rest of the world.

We challenge governments and policy makers to work together to realise a shared global vision. Technology transfer, capacity building, knowledge sharing, and addressing barriers to energy sustainability are your responsibility. And finally, we challenge the World Energy Council and congress delegates to take steps to implement the actions we have outlined and to report on progress in Rome, 2007. We are the decision makers of the future, but today we challenge our political and industry leaders to take real coordinated action. The tide is changing and we believe that there is great hope for the future.