 A warm welcome to all the journalists and participants with us in the room today, and as well those following us on live stream. I'm Jeremy Juergens, Managing Director of the World Economic Forum, and I have the pleasure to moderate this session here in Davos on speeding up the road on the road to net zero. First, let me introduce our participants today. To my left is Fatih Biral, Executive Director of the International Energy Agency. Frans Timmermans, Executive Vice President for the European Green Deal of the European Commission. Catherine McGregor, Chief Executive Officer, NGA Group, and will be joined shortly by Secretary John Kerry, Special Presidential Envoy for Climate of the United States of America. Now before inviting the panelists to join in, I'd like to just share a few words of context. The world's facing two major and connected crises. We have the worst energy crisis since the 1970s, and at the same time the climate crisis with the window to keep global warming below 1.5 degrees closing quickly. Both of these crises are challenging to address at the speed and scale needed for governments, companies, and others. One challenge cannot be solved while neglecting the other. They have to be solved together. Earlier this month, the World Economic Forum released the 2022 Fostering Effective Energy Transition Report, which highlighted that global energy systems are now under pressure from all sides, sustainability, affordability, and energy security, following many shocks and too slow progress on the transition. The report also underscores that we now must supercharge the energy transition to deliver sustainable, affordable, and secure energy for all. The topic for today's press conference is how to speed up on the road to net zero emissions and address the global energy crisis. How do we find win-wins? Avoid that solutions to the energy crisis slow down progress on climate action. I'd like to invite brief perspectives from our distinguished panelists. After the panelists, we'll have time for Q&A from journalists. And so with that, I'd like to invite Dr. Fatih Biral to begin. Many thanks and great that VEF decided such a press conference together with very distinguished colleagues with me today. Now, dear colleagues, I believe the Russia's invasion of Ukraine led to a major energy crisis. In my view, this is the first global energy crisis. We hit the oil crisis, oil crisis in 1970s, but now we have major problems in terms of oil, in terms of natural gas, in terms of coal. As Russia, the country that invaded Ukraine was only a few weeks ago, number one oil exporter of the world, number one natural gas exporter of the world, and a major player in the coal markets. As a result, we are seeing that the global energy markets are going to a major turmoil. Energy prices are skyrocketing, and as such, they are putting a huge burden on the global economy, inflation is surging in many countries, including giving some sickness of possible recession in some countries and beyond. So as such, we are seeing that the energy security is becoming a key issue in many countries' agenda, and countries are providing immediate responses to loss of Russian oil and gas in the markets, understandably so. But it is important that the response we give to Russia's invasion of Ukraine and resulting energy questions do not look in our energy future in a way that we are chances to limit the temperature increase 1.5 degrees is diminished. Because I see that some of the measures are definitely right in order to address the resulting loss of Russian oil and gas, to compensate this, but some go beyond, and we may well see that if the measures are not taken rightly, our energy future is locked in for the future, and we may lose our chances to reach our climate course. Maybe I stop here. Great. Thank you, Dr. Breil. I'd now like to invite Executive Vice President Tim Rehmens. Thank you very much, and it's great to be back in Davos, but strange to experience these high temperatures, but great to have this opportunity to talk again about these issues. Let me start by explaining briefly why we launched Repower EU last week, which is our answer to the need to wean ourselves as quickly as possible from imports of gas and oil from coal, gas and oil from Russia. I think there is a Europe before the 24th of February of this year, and one after. Things have changed, have changed profoundly, and even if the war would end tomorrow, the change is permanent. And one of the effects of this change is that we can no longer depend on Russian fossil fuels, and that it is best for our security and our prosperity and our future that we make sure we no longer need Russian oil and gas. Now, three components of our plan. First of all, we need to do much better in energy savings. The cheapest energy is the energy you don't use, and we could do much more, both at the level of industry, at the level of the private sector, and at the level of individual citizens, 440 million of them, to reduce our energy consumption, and we've proposed a number of measures that could lead to that. The second element, obviously, is to rapidly speed up our transition to renewable energy. We will put a special emphasis on rooftop solar because that is the quickest response. If we could convince all our member states to do what we propose, 25% of Europe's electricity will come from rooftop solar, which is a huge amount, and it will also help us address, I think, the most stormy political issue today in many European countries, which is extremely high energy prices. We will also be working to speed up permitting, which has been one of the main issues slowing down the transition. We will create so-called go-to areas, where you do once a permitting for a whole area, and then you don't need to do it for individual projects. That might reduce the time from 78 years to hopefully one. That would also already help this energy transition, and we will want to double the production of biomethane, which is also a huge potential resource that would also give new opportunities for a struggling European agricultural sector. That's the second pillar. But the third pillar is also inevitable, which is to diversify energy resourcing of fossil fuels. We cannot make the first and the second elements I spoke about the only pillars, because that doesn't work for the immediate. We will have to replace some of the fossil fuel with other fossil fuel, and so we're looking to sign LNG contracts and pipeline gas contracts around the world. I hope we will get the mandate as European Commission from our member states to do the negotiations on behalf of all the member states. I now see sometimes unfortunate negotiations from one member state and another member state driving the price up, because if I were a producer, I would also see how much I can get out of it. That's not smart. I hope we can decide to do these negotiations together, and the offer we have for the countries is not just to buy their LNG, but also to develop structural plans with them for the coming hydrogen economy. So you do things at the same time. You solve a short-term problem and you create a long-term relationship in a worldwide network, which I believe will be coming of green hydrogen production. That will be the basis, I think, of all the areas where electricity alone cannot solve the problem, and also the way to store and transport the excess electricity that will be produced from solar and wind in countries that do not need all that electricity. So I think hydrogen is part of the long-term answer. Now, this is the repowering you. I hope we will get support for that. It's approximately 300 billion euros, which sounds like a lot of money, but it isn't if you compare it to the 100 billion euros we're spending every year on Russian oil and gas. If you could spend that money on something that's future proof, that's a lot better. The final remark I want to make before I end is, yes, you mentioned the crisis we have, but I think it's not all the crises we have. And I particularly want to insist on the life-threatening biodiversity crisis we also face. Nature is in trouble. And where all our citizens are now very much aware of the climate crisis, and they want us to address the climate crisis, the same sense of urgency does not exist yet on the biodiversity crisis and the poor state our nature is in. The food crisis we're facing now is partly caused by the war, is partly caused by climate change, but is also caused by the biodiversity crisis. And if we don't take a holistic approach to these crises combined, one of them will literally kill us. So we need to have a holistic approach, including the biodiversity challenge we have. Thank you. Thank you for that healthy reminder on the wider set of crises we are facing here. I'd now like to pass to Catherine McGregor, CEO of the NGA Group. Thank you and a good morning, good afternoon everybody. So we had these massive challenges facing us already with this energy transition that needed to fulfill the decarbonation agenda and the affordability agenda. And now we have the security slash sovereignty agenda, which makes indeed, you know, the challenges even larger. So three key things for us at NGA. We are a very large energy utility company. I just want to leave you with three things that we are working on to help putting a piece of the solution. The first one is diversification. The second one is acceleration and the third one, which is coalition and partnership. So the first thing is obviously diversification, diversification of supply, making sure that we are buying the gas that is needed in the short term from a range of suppliers, leveraging the European infrastructure both from the import, transport and storage point of view. We also have strong conviction that the future energy mix of any country and for Europe for that matter has to be balanced and therefore there has to be also a diversification of technologies because really just common sense to not put all your eggs in one basket is a belief. Therefore electricity, of course wind, of course solar, we're not sure, we're not sure, but also gas will have to play a strong role in this energy transition to make sure that we continue specifically on the affordability route. It's a very narrow path indeed. Second point is around acceleration. So obviously acceleration in renewable, it's renewable today. It has the merit of being produced locally. There are dependencies on supply chain, of course, on technologies, whether it's PV or whether it's wind turbines, but still once it's installed you have a true produced here energy, which is a fantastic element of the solution to the sovereignty challenge that we're facing, affordability and low carbon, of course. So we are accelerating, we are now at a four gigawatt per year additional capacity of renewable power at NG and this is 2025. We have a target of 50 gigawatt and 80 gigawatt to 2030. We are on pace about half of our gross capex goes to renewable. So we are very motivated and actively working on that. We are also looking and thinking about how we can make those renewable more acceptable by society. It's a big challenge. You know, Frans Zimmerman mentioned the permitting. A lot of the permitting difficulty comes also from a poor appropriation of citizens of this energy and this project. So we're working and in France we have innovated with the introduction of actually a bureau veritas jointly developed label, which we've called TED, to make sure that the renewable project that we are developing follow a strict methodology against nine criteria, namely climate, nature and local stakeholders, which is so important to make sure that projects are successful. We are also, of course, very bullish in renewable gas. So it's bio methane and hydrogen. We have a target of being operating about four gigawatt of electrolyzer green hydrogen, which is going to be a big, big chunk of the response. And my last point, which is around coalition and partnerships, the challenges are so big that we cannot do anything in isolation. We need, of course, government support. We need partnership. We need to work together with suppliers and customers. And here I just want to mention the first mover coalition, which is really trying to address the chicken and egg issues challenges by making sure we can aggregate the demand for green technology, whether it's green power green steel, so that we can really give strong demand signals in order to get the new economy kick started. So thank you very much. Thank you, Catherine. I'd now like to pass to Secretary Kerry, the special presidential envoy for climate of the United States. Thank you very much. I'm delighted to be here with my friends and colleagues who have been working on this for some period of time. So it's critical to acknowledge that events in Ukraine have raised a number of questions and challenged people's thinking to some degree. And I think hopefully here today and in the next discussions here at the World Economic Forum, we can be very clear about several things. We should not allow a false narrative to be created that what has happened in Ukraine somehow obviates the need to continue forward and to accelerate even what we're trying to do to address the crisis of the climate. Yes, there has to be a resupply to Europe of gas that has been lost in the cutoff from Russia. But as Fati Birol knows and understands and the International Energy Agency makes clear, there are ways to provide that gas, ranging from using shale, which is quick to market, doesn't require a whole massive new infrastructure and drilling, to chatteling the venting and the flaring that is wasting literally an amount of gas that is equal to the amount that Europe uses from Russia. And if you begin to also deploy some of the technologies that are available today in greater amount, which Europe is doing, then you begin to deal with the demand issue. So what we can't do obviously, which some people are already pushing for, is the notion that it needs a massive build out of a whole recommittal of the kind of infrastructure we've had in the last century in order to meet this crisis. We can meet this crisis and meet the crisis of Ukraine and the energy crisis of Europe and still deal, as we must, with the climate crisis. And no one should believe that the crisis of Ukraine is an excuse to suddenly build out the old kind of infrastructure that we had. We have to be more creative than that. We have to be much smarter than that, given the stakes. Emissions have gone up in the last year. They've gone up 6 percent, some 36 billion tons of CO2. And coal use has gone up about 9 percent last year. Now, everybody here understands that to keep an economy moving, and we must, and to not wind up in deficit, energy crisis, it may be necessary temporarily to do something that we don't, all of us, really want to do, but we may have to do temporarily. But if we do what we know we can do with respect to the deployment of new technologies, and if we approach this thoughtfully with respect to the rapid investment in and deployment of new technologies, which the IEA points out, there are about 44 of those technologies that will have a massive impact on our ability to deal with the climate crisis and provide energy, but which do not contribute further to the climate crisis itself. So note what happened in Glasgow. In Glasgow, 65 percent of global GDP made commitments that if fully implemented means they would be keeping 1.5 degrees alive. There's another 35 percent of the world's GDP that didn't yet make those decisions, but which we want to encourage to try to raise their ambition. But the fact is that the International Energy Agency evaluated all of the promises made in Glasgow and concluded that if they are fully implemented, that would provide a temperature rise over the next by 2050 of 1.8 degrees. That message is not that, okay, 1.8 becomes acceptable. That message is that we can win the battle if we bring the other 35 percent on board and if we accelerate the process by which we are implementing new alternative and renewable choices for our energy production. So I'm encouraged by that and the first mover coalition, which is a group of major corporations around the world that are making decisions now to pay the green premium in order to produce green cement or in order to have sustainable aviation fuel or enable to build a carbon-free ship for shipping. They are doing those things and they're doing them because they know that that will accelerate the transition and accelerate our ability to be able to meet the crisis. So I think we should be hopeful and optimistic that if we make the right choices here, we can win all of these battles. We can do what we need to do with respect to Ukraine. We can do what we need to do with respect to the climate crisis. But we cannot be seduced into believing that this suddenly is an open door to going back and doing what we were doing, which created the crisis in the first place, which will not go away unless we approach it thoughtfully and with the other options that are available to us. Thank you. Thank you, Secretary Kerry. I'd like to now open it up for questions. Please identify yourself and also indicate to whom your question is addressed. Ms. Wong. Thank you. Thank you, everyone. My name is Wang Qing, a reporter from China. I have a question to Mr. Kerry. We know that last year in Glasgow, you met with Mr. Xie Zhenghua from China and you've made the joint declaration and a few action points. And so I wonder, so back at this moment, if you would evaluate the progress that you have had since then, how would you evaluate it? And my second question is to Mr. Timmermans. And you mentioned that now Europe is facing this transition to renewable energy and is looking for global partners. And I wonder, what is your prospect in this context in terms of the China-U collaboration? Thank you so much. Well, I've had several conversations virtually with my counterpart, Xie Zhenghua. And this morning we met here in Davos. We had a very good meeting, very constructive. We are working to finish the finishing touches on the working group that we've created with experts working from both of our countries who will contribute to the dialogue. And we are meeting again in Berlin at the G7 meeting in a couple of days to bring working group together. And obviously we hope over the next months to be able to accelerate our joint efforts. China signed up in Glasgow to issuing this year an ambitious national action plan for methane. And that's critical. And we agreed to work together to accelerate the conversion from coal. We also agreed to work on deforestation. Those will be the subjects of the working group that we hope to close out in the next few days. But I'm very optimistic, and I think that Xie Zhenghua and we will both be on a panel shortly. We would both agree that it's imperative that we work together. This is not a bilateral issue. It's a multilateral, global, universal, and existential issue. And not working together is simply unacceptable for both of our countries, but most importantly for the rest of the world, for all of our citizens. Thank you. Yes, I also spoke to Xie Zhenghua last week online, and I will be meeting with him in Berlin tomorrow night. I think our talks are focused mainly on both the issue of mitigation, how do you reduce emissions, and adaptation, how do you make sure we bring together the funds that were promised to the developing world for the adaptation, and we're looking for ways to make that happen together. We're also looking, I'm also looking for ways to increase the acceptance of an emissions trading system in China, which is something that China is working on, and I think is very promising. And of course, we're also always very interested in knowing what the transition to renewables actually means in China, because China is massively, massively investing in renewables, and we want to know how and where and what this means for China's energy mix. Because China is responsible for about a quarter of emissions globally. If we can really, really make agreements that reduce those emissions, that would have a huge impact on global emissions. And I also think it would have a huge positive impact on China's future economy if they can shift away from fossil fuel to renewables. So I think this is, like John says, a global issue, where I believe China has always shown a leadership role. There would have not have been an agreement in Paris without China playing a leadership role there, together with the United States. There would not have been an agreement last year in Glasgow if there was not a meeting of minds, especially between the U.S. and China, and that we could sort of come to an agreement that was acceptable to China, but was very much forward-looking. So we need China in this, but also China needs to show responsibility in this. And Mr. Xi Jinping was someone that we can really, really work with. Great. Thank you. We're at the time limit, but I'd like to take two more questions. If it's okay with the panelists, I'll take those together. Mustafa, and then the gentleman in the white shirt. Thank you, Jeremy. My question is for Mr. Kerry. I'm Mustafa Al-Rawi from the National in Abu Dhabi. As we move forward, we'll have COP 27 in Egypt, COP 28 in the UAE, with speeding up the Parthenet Zero, what role can Middle East countries play in helping the global effort and working together with everyone? Middle East countries can play, and some of them are playing a critical role at this point. UAE stepped up and hosted the first ever Middle East climate conference, which had 11 countries come together, a group of them, oil and gas producers, and they all signed on to an extremely forward-leaning communique, which they are now pursuing and following up on. UAE, for instance, has a very large solar deployment. They're exploring rapidly green hydrogen and other ways to be, and they're investing in other countries and helping with their transitions. India is a prime example where you have a 450 gigawatt commitment by Prime Minister Modi, which is 500 now, which is very significant, but Middle Eastern countries are already engaged in the effort to accelerate that deployment. Obviously, flaring, ending flaring, Iraq, for instance, other countries, flare still and vent, that's a real challenge because methane is so much more destructive than CO2. We must stop those practices and obviously plug the leaks of methane that are occurring in too many parts of the world. Russia has a particularly heavy leakage challenge. So I think that any oil-producing country that begins to step up and indicate their acceptance of the reality of the need to build for a transition is a critical message to the rest of the world, and UAE and other countries in the region have done that and are doing that. So we announced project prosperity, which is a combination of Jordan and the UAE and Israel building solar power output that will feed into Israel while Israel is going to help produce a major desalination plant capacity for Jordan. And there's a synergy in that, not to mention that it helps build a foundation for countries to begin to think about each other and work with each other very differently from past history. So we look forward to leadership from the region and obviously it would help to have some greater production at this point in time in order to deal with some of the challenges of inflation and rise of price, particularly on gas for a lot of citizens around the world. Thank you. Last question here. Hello. I'm from the Belgium newspaper, the Stalnet. I had a question for Ms. McGregor. How do you see the current nuclear power plants in the road to net zero, especially in Belgium, because we are closing down, as you know, or we're trying to reopen them? So how do you see the future? Look, I think as a general comment, I think nuclear is part of this diversification of energy mix and can be a solution. NGI as a private actor, as you know, has decided that nuclear operation was not going to be a priority. So we are right now following what is currently in Belgian law, which is to phase out nuclear by 2025 with the discussion, specific discussion on two nuclear with the Belgium government. The discussions are ongoing, so obviously we'll do our role there. Great. Thank you. With that, I'd like to close this press conference and thank our panelists and also all the journalists following here today. Thank you.