London Brainstorm: The Future of European Energy

While half the room imagined change from the perspective of government, the other half thought about the role of business, but most suggestions pointed strongly to the need for an interconnected solution. Laura Sandys, UK MP, PPS to Greg Barker, Minister of State for Energy and Climate Change and representative of Table 6, suggested that there were three key elements to any success, all of which she termed smart: a smart government supporting a smart grid, smart companies making smart products, and smart consumers making smart choices.

Table 8 also felt that smart grids and smart meters were vital to raising efficiency, and the table's spokesperson, Ben Wilson from UK Power Networks, suggested that these combined with a sensible carbon tax would lead to a boom in small power-providing businesses that would then deliver significant choice to consumers.

Most tables stressed the need for a stable and foreseeable carbon price (or as Table 9's Craig Bennett from Friends of the Earth put it, a Fossil Tax), and Geoff Cutmore asked the UK's Tim Yeo MP, chair of the Energy and Climate Change Select Committee - but most significantly the pitch man for Table 4 - why the need for long term strategies are so clear, yet so rarely accomplished by European governments. He explained that the time horizon for governments (which are accountable at most every 5 years) is incompatible with the needs of the energy sector, where companies look ahead 20, 30 or even 50 years.

Paul Simpson of the Carbon Disclosure Project suggested a Green Martial Plan for the EU. Don't worry about the details he assured us, Table 5 had that covered! A progressive taxation system that removed income tax from all but the highest earners and moved capital raising to a carbon tax would allow for job creation, give confidence to the markets, and allow governments to borrow heavily, "putting our money where our mouth is" to unleash innovation.

Table 3's Abyd Karmali from Bank of America Merrill Lynch explained that if European regulators mandated that 2% of assets under management were moved to green bond investments, around a trillion dollars would be freed to enable innovation.

Eliot Whittington, speaking for Table 7, thought that education for consumers as well as raised efficiency standards for products and homes would have a significant impact, and Bill Spence on Table 2 thought that we could create resilience against climate change through openness to multiple fuel sources and formal innovation labs to create opportunities for innovation employment.

Table 1, coming from a policy perspective, impressed a tough-to-please room with a top down and a bottom up approach - an escalating carbon price, a pan-European grid and a programme to inform, educate and empowering communities to add power to the grid.

With a top feasibility score of 6.1, Table 1 and a steadily improving carbon tax were the evening's winners.

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More highlights

	Leo Johnson, PWC, gives his views on the night's discussions. Watch now
	Baroness Worthington gives her views on the nights proceedings. Watch now
	See how the brainstorm process works in this video Watch now
	See a selection of photos from this event Watch now