In the News, Water / Climate

Samir attends the Renewable Energy and International Law (REIL) roundtable in Cambridge, 2011

June 20-21, 2011, UK
Link to original website
Feature in Global Energy Review, July 12, 2011
Feature in Business Weekly, June 13, 2011

Anglia Ruskin University’s Global Sustainability Institute (GSI) is co-hosting the prestigious Renewable Energy and International Law (REIL) roundtable in Cambridge from 20-21 June.

REIL is an informal network of international climate change and clean-energy experts. Its members include policymakers, private investors, technology developers and academics, all working to increase the use of cleaner and more efficient energy solutions.

Delegates taking part in the roundtable include Bob Simon, Chief of Staff of the United States Senate Energy Committee; Brad Gentry, Director of the Yale Centre for Business and the Environment; Melinda Kimble, Senior Vice President of the United Nations Foundation; Samir Saran, Vice President of the Observer Research Foundation in India; Richard Kauffman, Chairman of Levi Strauss & Co; and Eomon Ryan, Leader of the Green Party in Ireland.

The event, which is being held at the University of Cambridge’s Moller Centre, will focus on strategies to address climate change and the development of the low carbon economy. Topics for discussion include financing clean technology; the convergence of food, water, and energy issues; and sustainable energy access.

“With long-term international political processes finding it difficult to come to agreements, it is ever more important to be thinking creatively about solutions to climate change and access to energy. REIL brings together key influencers from across the climate change policy and finance world. In particular it offers a unique opportunity for public and private sector delegates from the UK and US to share innovative thinking and approaches to tackling issues within the energy sphere. The group of people meeting in Cambridge for this workshop will examine some of the key challenges that we face and demonstrate that a solution is possible and can be found,” said Dr Aled Jones, Director of Anglia Ruskin’s GSI.
REIL members convene regularly, with an annual roundtable held at the Yale School of Forestry & Environmental Studies. This year, REIL are holding their first ever roundtable at Cambridge University in partnership with the Cambridge Centre on Science and Policy (CSaP) and Anglia Ruskin University’s GSI.

The synergy between REIL, CSaP and GSI is strong, with CSaP acting as a networking organisation dedicated to building relationships between policy makers and experts in the fields of science and engineering.

The GSI is a research institute based at Anglia Ruskin that encompasses a broad portfolio of areas and interests including environment, built environment, technology, tourism, business practice, education and health.

The roundtable will comprise discussions on the following subjects:  

  • Financing Clean Technology (including proposals for Green Investment Banks)
  • Convergence of Food, Water, and Energy Issues
  • UNFCCC: From Cancun to Durban
  • Technology
  • Sustainable Energy Access
  • Financing Energy Efficiency

Event chairs:

  • James Cameron (Founder and Vice Chairman, Climate Change Capital)
  • Bradford Gentry (Director, Yale Center for Business and the Environment, Yale School of Forestry & Environmental Studies)
  • Leslie Parker (Managing Director, REIL)
  • Martijn Wilder (Partner and Head of Global Environmental Markets Practice, Baker & McKenzie and Adjunct Professor, ANU)

Timings
Monday 20 June: The meeting will start at 10am and finish with dinner in Trinity Hall.
Tuesday 21 June:  Day two of the meeing will start at 9.30am and finish at 5pm.
Please note that attendance is by invitation only.  There is no fee associated with attending the workshop and dinner.

Location:
The Møller Centre
Management Training & Conference Centre
Churchill College, University of Cambridge
Storey’s Way
Cambridge
CB3 0DE
United Kingdom

Company: Reil (Renewable Energy & International Law)
Website: http://www.anglia.ac.uk/ruskin/en/home/news/climate-change-event.html

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BRICS, In the News

Institute for Applied Economic Research, Brazil reports on BRIC Summit of Think Tanks

April 14-15, 2010
Link to original website
Link to IPEA

Consumption dream based on the American way is unsustainable 
Participants in the BRIC Summit of Think Tanks demand radical change in the productive sector and new global governance 

The researchers who participated in the BRIC Summit of Think Tanks agreed unanimously that the citizens of their countries have consumption dreams based on the American way of life. For many, this is a dream that the planet will not stand. The debates led to the conclusion that the way out entails new global governance and a radical change in the productive sector, with lower production of private automotive vehicles and more investments in public transportation. Who will volunteer to try to lead a new world order?

The Indian researcher Samir Saran, from the Observer Research Foundation, noted that U.S. president Barack Obama has demonstrated political will to lead the transition to clean energy in the world. He quoted part of a speech delivered by the U.S. president: “We know that the leaders in the new energy matrix may lead the 21st century economy”.

According to Chinese researcher Zhang Yuyan, from the Institute of World Economics & Politics, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, BRIC nations must unite to take the lead and “avoid that tariffs on carbon emissions be used as protectionist measures by developed countries”. The researcher believes that relations between the BRIC countries and other emerging nations should safeguard the right to quality of life to all citizens.

 

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In the News, Water / Climate

Bangladesh Online Research Network report on ORF’s water security report, 2011

Bangladesh, 2011
Link to original website

Water Security in South Asia: Issues and Policy Recommendations
This brief is largely based on several discussions organised at Observer Research Foundation over a period of time. These discussions were enriched by the presence of some of the well-known experts on water issues in the country, like former Union Minister for Water Resources, Dr. Suresh Prabhu, current High Commissioner of Bangladesh, Tariq Ahmad Karim, Mr. Sunjoy Joshi, Director, Observer Research Foundation, Ms. Clare Shakya, Senior Regional Climate Change and Water Adviser, DFID*, India, Mr. Samir Saran, Vice President, ORF and Dr. Dinesh Kumar, Executive Director, Institute for Resource Analysis and Policy, Hyderabad.

It is estimated that by 2030, only 60 per cent of the world’s population will have access to fresh water 1 supplies . This would mean that about 40 per cent of the world population or about 3 billion-people would be without a reliable source of water and most of them would live in impoverished, conflictprone and water-stressed areas like South Asia.

Water is already an extremely contentious, and volatile, issue in South Asia. There are more people in the region than ever before and their dependence on water for various needs continues to multiply by leaps and bounds. The quantum of water available, for the present as well as future, has reduced dramatically, particularly in the last half-acentury. This is due to water-fertiliser intensive farming, overexploitation of groundwater for drinking, industrial and agricultural purposes, large scale contamination of water sources, total inertia in controlling and channelising waste water, indifferent approach to water conservation programmes and populist policies on water consumption. SOURCE: Observer Research Foundation

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Politics / Globalisation

Samir attended Cambridge Central Asia Forum roundtable on Kazakhstan, OSCE and New Opportunities, 2010

February 12, 2010, UK
Link to roundtable summary
For more information on the Cambridge Central Asia Forum, please visit this website.

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In the News, Non-Traditional Security

NewKerala.com covers ORF report launch on non-traditional security

Latin American countries keen to strengthen relations with India 
April 16, 2011
Link to website  

Participating in an interaction at Observer Research Foundation, envoys from 17 countries from Latin America said their countries are keen to strengthen economic relations with India. “We want better, mutually beneficial relations with India. We have got lots of natural resources, especially oil and other energy resources. But we don’t want to be just provider of resources. We want you to cooperate in our development also,” said Columbian Ambassador Juan Alfredo Pinto Saavedra.

Saavedra, the coordinator of the group of Ambassadors of the Latin American countries, said the US and the Europe used resources from their countries for their development, but did not help them in the development. “While they used our resources, we remained poor,” he said. He wanted India and China to be different in their approach to Latin American countries.

Besides the Columbian Ambassador, Ambassadors from Paraguay, Uruguay, Panama, Costo Rica, Mexico, Peru, Cuba, Dominican Republic attended the interaction. The other countries were represented by high level diplomats like Deputy Chief the Missions and Charge d’ Affaires.

The Ambassadors were given a presentation on the ORF Report on India’s non-traditional security threats, titled “Navigating the Near” by Samir Saran, Vice President, Observer Research Foundation. This study was done by ORF for the Integrated Defence Staff, the Ministry of Defence.

Chairing the meeting, M. Rasgotra, a former Foreign Secretary and now President of the ORF Centre for International Relations, said Latin American countries enjoyed good sentiments in India. He said India would be keen to have mutually beneficial cooperation with them. Former Foreign Secretary K. Raghunath and ORF Director Sunjoy Joshi also took part in the meeting.

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BRICS, In the News

Sri Lanka’s TOPS.lk covers BRIC discussion on climate change

April 16, 2010
Link to website  

BRAZIL: Representatives from think tanks of the BRIC countries(Brazil, Russia, India and China) discussed ways to fight climate change at a seminar here Wednesday. The seminar, called BRIC Think-Tank Summit, gathered members of think tanks from the BRIC countries to examine the global economic situation and the role of BRIC countries in the post-crisis global transformation.

World countries need to take joint action to fight climate change, said Indian representative Samir Saran from the Observer Research Foundation. Chinese representative Wu Enyuan, with the Institute of Russian, Eastern European and Central Asian Studies, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, said the developed countries had a bigger responsibility on carbon emission reduction as the current climate change is a result of some 150 years of industrialization process of the developed nations.

But he said the developing countries, including the BRIC nations, should take their fair share of responsibility as well, and adopt measures to fight global warming. “China has fulfilled its responsibility by taking practical actions in either energy conservation or environmental protection,” he said, adding that other BRIC countries have also committed themselves to carbon emission reduction. Brazil’s representative Eduardo Viola said that implementing these measures is more important than holding discussions.

Russian representative Nikolai Mikhailov said climate change unveiled the notion that human beings can treat nature as they want without caring about the consequences.Only a radical change in their attitude could make a difference, he said.

The two-day seminar was held on the eve of the second BRIC summit scheduled for Friday in the Brazilian capital.

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In the News, Water / Climate

Samir at: “Technology transfer, policy and climate change: Goal 2020 for India”

21 April 2010, Delhi
Download here the entire agenda

A roundtable was held on April 20, 2010, Tuesday, on “Goal 2020: Identifying issues, options, opportunities and frameworks towards demand side mainstreaming of climate friendly technologies through Technology Diffusion Centers”, at the ORF New Delhi campus. The roundtable saw participation from trade commissions, multilateral investors and corporates.

This roundtable was convened by the ORF in association with the India Carbon Outlook,  an independent information marketplace tracking actions related to the carbon economy as well as their impact, and the cKinetics, a venture accelerator catalyzing rapid adoption of low carbon sustainable growth practices in emerging economies through technology transfer, capital access and adaptation interventions.

The roundtable was held to identify steps that can be taken in the coming years so as to be able to achieve the impact of technology/application available to be transferred for mitigation and adaptation in India by 2020. The roundtable had the four sessions. The first and the second session were based on the discussion on climate friendly prototypes and discussion on global experiences. The third session was divided into two parallel working group discussions- Technology Transfer framework, Designing Technology Diffusion and Innovation Hub Ecosystem and Prototype Rollouts and Mass Adoption.

In his opening remarks Mr. Sunjoy Joshi, ORF Distinguished Fellow, said that pace of adoption & innovation was critical for mainstreaming climate friendly technologies and identified solar thermal technology as the most promising one for mass adoption.

The first session started with Mr. Upendra Bhatt, Managing Director, cKinetics, laying out the goals for the roundtable: facilitate technology diffusion and technology transfer; document best practices; identify prototype technology for next two years; come up with concrete suggestions. He also presented highlights from the pre-meeting questionnaire which essentially represented contrarian views on clean technology transfer.

In the second session, Mr. V. Raghuraman, Principal Advisor, Jaguar Overseas Ltd., stressed upon the need to adopt Electric Power Research Institute model in diffusing renewable technology for India. He was of the view that LED lighting technology is one of the means to provide lighting to 400 million inhabitants having no electricity. He also said that for mass adoption the technology should be user friendly. Mr. Samir Saran, ORF Vice President, said that energy efficiency is “the low hanging fruit” in achieving carbon intensity targets. Mr. Poul Jensen, Head, European Business and Technology Centre (EBTC) in India, said that India had the potential to make clean technologies mature. He also shared the EBTC experience of being a facilitator for EU clean technology. Mr. Takeshi Yoshida, chief representatives, NEDO, shared Japanese experiences in the field of energy efficiency and mentioned the “Top Runner Programme” mandated by the Japanese government through which all equipment manufacturers in Japan have to attain benchmark efficiency of the most energy efficient manufacturer.

Ms. Lydia Powell, Senior Fellow, ORF, identified property rights and persistence of unorganized sector as some of the problems for mass adoption of technologies. Dr. Ramesh Jalan, Head, Solution Exchange stressed upon the necessity to improve the service support system for mass adoption renewable technologies. Mr. Kunal Upadhyay from IIM Ahemdabad conveyed the view that levelised cost of electricity was critical in determining economic viability of distributed generation. Dr. J. V. Rao, Director, NITRA, said that there was no representative baseline data at the SMEs level which was required for implementing carbon intensity reduction programmes. Prof. Rakesh Basant, IIM Ahemdabad, was of the view that choice of prototype technology was not independent choice and that inventory of prototype technologies must be created to meet diverse needs. Mr. Vishal Thapa, Director, ICF India, said that as India was extremely segmented, we should not pick winners in technology and that we must create a portfolio of solutions.

The key point that emerged from the deliberations of the parallel working groups in the afternoon session was that cost, user friendliness and durability were critical for both technology transfer from developed countries and for mass adoption of those technologies in India.

Programme details available here

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BRICS, In the News

Philippine News cover BRIC countries’ think-tanks discussion on climate change

April 15, 2010
Brasilia, Brazil
Link to original website

Representatives from think tanks of the BRIC countries (Brazil, Russia, India and China) discussed ways to fight climate change at a seminar here Wednesday. The seminar, called BRIC Think-Tank Summit, gathered members of think tanks from the BRIC countries to examine the global economic situation and the role of BRIC countries in the post-crisis global transformation

World countries need to take joint action to fight climate change, said Indian representative Samir Saran from the Observer Research Foundation. Chinese representative Wu Enyuan, with the Institute of Russian, Eastern European and Central Asian Studies, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, said the developed countries had a bigger responsibility on carbon emission reduction as the current climate change is a result of some 150 years of industrialization process of the developed nations. But he said the developing countries, including the BRIC nations, should take their fair share of responsibility as well, and adopt measures to fight global warming.

“China has fulfilled its responsibility by taking practical actions in either energy conservation or environmental protection,” he said, adding that other BRIC countries have also committed themselves to carbon emission reduction. Brazil’s representative Eduardo Viola said that implementing these measures is more important than holding discussions. Russian representative Nikolai Mikhailov said climate change unveiled the notion that human beings can treat nature as they want without caring about the consequences. Only a radical change in their attitude could make a difference, he said.

The two-day seminar was held on the eve of the second BRIC summit scheduled for Friday in the Brazilian capital.

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BRICS, In the News

Daily News covers BRIC meeting in Brasilia on climate change, 2010

April 16, 2010
Link to original website 

BRAZIL: Representatives from think tanks of the BRIC countries (Brazil, Russia, India and China) discussed ways to fight climate change at a seminar here Wednesday. The seminar, called BRIC Think-Tank Summit, gathered members of think tanks from the BRIC countries to examine the global economic situation and the role of BRIC countries in the post-crisis global transformation.

World countries need to take joint action to fight climate change, said Indian representative Samir Saran from the Observer Research Foundation. Chinese representative Wu Enyuan, with the Institute of Russian, Eastern European and Central Asian Studies, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, said the developed countries had a bigger responsibility on carbon emission reduction as the current climate change is a result of some 150 years of industrialization process of the developed nations.

But he said the developing countries, including the BRIC nations, should take their fair share of responsibility as well, and adopt measures to fight global warming. “China has fulfilled its responsibility by taking practical actions in either energy conservation or environmental protection,” he said, adding that other BRIC countries have also committed themselves to carbon emission reduction. Brazil’s representative Eduardo Viola said that implementing these measures is more important than holding discussions.

Russian representative Nikolai Mikhailov said climate change unveiled the notion that human beings can treat nature as they want without caring about the consequences. Only a radical change in their attitude could make a difference, he said.

The two-day seminar was held on the eve of the second BRIC summit scheduled for Friday in the Brazilian capital.

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In the News, Politics / Globalisation

Samir speaks at Open Source Radio, Brown University, US on ‘Obama as Gorbachev: a Regime in Crisis’, 2009

 

 

 

March 19, 2009
Link to original website (from minute 19.00 onwards), with Christopher Lydon

1. Unless the West suddenly gets a new act together, China wins the global crisis — because it has cash, a production machine, an orderly, top-down system co-designed by Milton Friedman and Stalin, and a domestic market of customers if and when export demand collapses.

2. The turmoil in finance capital has also the dimensions of a “civilizational” crisis (what do we stand for after greed and consumption… of such things as a new Paris Hilton line of apparel, for dogs?) and an advancing crisis of the human habitat, our lifeline with nature.

3. One way to see Barack Obama in this situation is as “our Gorbachev”: the designated captain whose assignment is to save the crumbling pillar on our side of the old Cold War, or surrender the regime.

By the old rule that the trick in life is to locate three main points (in anything), there’s my free translation of a fascinating Watson Institute conference last weekend. Between the lines, most of it, but clear enough.

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