British Energy Security in a Mulitpolar World

Introduction

The BIEE in association with UKERC  and University of  Exeter EPG are holding a meeting  on UK energy security.  The last few years have seen Britain moving from being a net exporter to a net importer of energy. The threat of climate change has led to the slow but inexorable inclusion of environmental concerns in mainstream energy policy. Against this backdrop, economic and political power around the globe has altered, creating a complex, multipolar world.  Rising concerns about the long term availability and price of oil, gas and uranium only add to the challenges facing Britain.

Two of the speakers, Catherine Mitchell and Jim Watson, have a recently published a book on the subject. Carolyn Davidson, is Deputy Head of the Climate Change and Energy Department at the Foreign and Commonwealth Office. The speakers will focus on the key issues, as they see them, for ensuring British energy security with plenty of time for questions from the floor and discussion.

Speakers

Prof Catherine Mitchell

Catherine Mitchell leads the Energy Policy Group at the University of Exeter, having worked on energy issues since the early 1980s. She is principle investigator on the ‘IGov: Innovation, Governance and Affordability for a Sustainable Secure Economy’ Project as part of a four year funded EPSRC Established Career Fellowship Award. She is a Lead Author in the IPCC Working Group 3’s Fifth Assessment report (AR5); a Coordinating Lead Author of the Policy, Financing & Implementation Chapter of the IPCC (Inter-Governmental Panel on Climate Change) Special Report on Renewable Energy Sources and Climate Change Mitigation 2008-2011; She is also a Lead Analyst of sub-Chapter 13 (Policy) of Chapter 11 (Renewable Energy) of the Global Energy Assessment undertaken through the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA) 2008-2010; She was co-PI of the ESMW research cluster and a Co-Director of the UK Energy Research Centre (UKERC). She has also advised numerous national and international companies, NGOs and institutions on various aspects of the transition to a sustainable energy system. She has worked previously as an academic in the Centre for Management Under Regulation at the Warwick Business School, University of Warwick (2000-2007); the Energy Group of the Science Policy Research Unit, University of Sussex (1990-2000); and the Energy and Resources Group, University of California, Berkeley (1999). Prior to that she was a journalist writing about oil and gas issues.

Prof Jim Watson

Jim Watson is Professor of Energy Policy at SPRU, University of Sussex, and joined UKERC as Research Director in February 2013. He was previously Director of the Sussex Energy Group at the University of Sussex from Dec 2008 to Jan 2013.Jim trained as an engineer at Imperial College London and has a PhD in science and technology policy from Sussex. He has 20 years’ research experience on a range of energy, climate change and innovation policy issues. His most recent research has focused on the uncertainties facing carbon capture and storage technologies, low carbon innovation in China, community energy in the UK, and the governance implications of sustainable infrastructure systems.
He frequently advises UK government departments and other organisations. He was a lead expert with the UK Foresight project on Sustainable Energy Management and the Built Environment (2007-08), and has been a Specialist Adviser with House of Commons Committees on Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (2006-09) and Energy and Climate Change (2010-11). Jim has extensive international experience, including over ten years working on energy scenarios and energy innovation policies in China and India. In 2008, he spent three months as a Visiting Scholar at the Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University.Jim is a council member of the British Institute for Energy Economics, and was its chair in 2011. He is also a member of DECC and Defra’s social science expert panel.

Carolyn Davidson

Carolyn Davidson has been the Deputy Head of the Climate Change and Energy Department, Foreign and Commonwealth Office, since January 2012. Prior to that she was British High Commissioner to Zambia (a role she job shared with her husband, Tom Carter, the first such arrangement in any diplomatic service).Previously she has worked in Slovakia, Thailand, Bonn and Tokyo as well as a brief period in the European Commission in Brussels. She speaks French, German and Japanese and has an MBA from the Open University .

Venue

The meeting  is being hosted by Imperial College Energy Futures Lab at its main South Kensington Campus. It will take place in  ACEX Lecture Theatre 1   ( building  14 on the  map) in the Department of Chemical Engineering .

Registration will take place  from  17.30 ,  the meeting  will start at  17.45 and finish at 19.15 and will be followed by drinks and networking.