 Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. Hello, early birds. Thank you so much for getting up so early and running over to this very early morning session because we are having a great discussion on some of the key issues that the world is looking at closely today, which is called energy amid rivalry. This is an interesting topic, eye-catching certainly, when you have a rivalry thrown over there. But I've been talking to our web colleagues. They're trying to tell me that this is an interesting headline. Behind this is a thorough discussion about how the stakeholders in the issue of energy are going to work together both with their domestic agenda and also with our collective global goals. So I just want to explain the topic a little bit. Having said that, though, it is not just the traditional energy that we're looking at. We're certainly looking at the development of the new energy and all the discussions related to it. Meanwhile, when we are talking about energy, we're not talking about commodities alone. Economies alone. We're talking about real people, real innovations behind all of this. So let's get our conversation started. Ladies and gentlemen, my great honor as the moderator of this session to introduce our panelists. They are coming from different parts of the world and bringing in their opinions from different sectors of our economy and society. My great honor to introduce Capri Simpson, Commissioner for Energy from the European Commission based in Brussels. And now she's with us here. Good to see you. Good morning to you. Meanwhile, Mr. Shunichi Miyanaka, Good morning, Chairman of the Board with Mitsubishi Heavy Industries. He's based in Japan. He's also coming from the Council of International Business with World Economic Forum. Good to see you, sir. Last but not least, we are joining here by Megan O'Sullivan, who is a well-known scholar in the field. She is a professor of the practice of international affairs and also director of geopolitics of energy project with Harvard University, originally based in the United States with us here as well. Meanwhile, on the road, he's going to be here very soon. We have a minister of petroleum natural gas and minister of housing and urban affairs from India. And Mr. Minister is going to join us very soon. Let me start by asking about the latest going on on the European continent. We understand the new policies are turning out, as we speak, regarding the future of energy, especially new energy. And yet, how is that working together with our global goals, for example, reflected in the results of COP28, Madam Commissioner? Thank you, and once again, good morning. It's a pleasure to be with you here. And indeed, in Europe, we have finalized all the legislative pieces that will set our targets for 2030. So we know what needs to be done to achieve a significant share in our overall energy mix to be covered by renewables. We aim for 42.5%. And doing so, we will prioritize also all the technologies that help us to save the energy. Because lesson learned from past two years is that despite the fact that European consumers could replace lost Russian fossil fuels by alternative suppliers, we don't want to do that, because that would create unwanted consequences across the globe. And we prioritize savings. We did so in 2022. We saved 18% of gas, usually consumed by our consumers in average. Now, we are at the final stage to set our targets for 2040. And that means that we will, of course, prioritize renewables, but we will also need all the other low carbon technologies that will help us to cut CO2 emissions. And that means that after two weeks, when we present our 2040 targets, very ambitious targets, we will also company this with our communication on carbon removals, industrial carbon removals. And we will also launch industrial SMR alliance. All these technologies are necessary in the decade beyond 2030. Well, we're looking at the policy lines. Regarding policy lines, North America, United States, for example, Professor, where you are based, also have been turning out new policies. The IRA, for example, is one of those. So how do you see that as working with the domestic agenda while at the same time serving in any way with the global goals we're seeing? How about its implementation so far? Sure. Thank you. And it's great to be here this morning and with this group. Good to see you. I actually think you mentioned the IRA, the Inflation Reduction Act, which is the largest piece of climate legislation that the United States has ever undertaken. And it's really, I would say, a great example of how domestic priorities are coming together with actually the rivalry that's in the title of this session to produce a piece of legislation that is aimed to advance America's climate agenda. And what I mean by that, you have the domestic piece. A big portion of the IRA is actually about domestic competitiveness and about the United States really wanting to bring more manufacturing back to the United States to provide more jobs, a real domestic agenda. But it's combined with the realization that China has become a real leader in energy transition. And that's going to have a lot of advantages, economic and geopolitical to China. And the US and its policymakers and lawmakers really wanting to be competitive with China, those two objectives come together in this legislation that will do the most of any other piece of legislation, as I said, to advance America's objective to get to net zero. So it's a good example of how rivalry doesn't necessarily have to detract from the path to net zero but can actually spur us further along. What about its implementation? Details are in the implementation, so to say. No, no. I would go with that question to Madam Commissioner as well. Sure. Well, I mean, as you're intimating, the implementation is really the hard part, putting the strategy in place is generally the easy part. And I would say that on the one hand, initial buy-in to the legislation and investments made in the renewable energy space, which the legislation was intended to spur, have been even greater than anticipated. And so, initially, the thought was that the IRA, because it doesn't cap the subsidies, initially it was thought maybe it'll be $300,000,000,000,000,000. But now it looks like it'll be more over a trillion dollars because there's such an uptake in the desire for those subsidies. On the other hand, implementation is really hard. And these are huge sums of money we're talking about. And there are debates and still specifications coming out about how this money can be used, what it's subject to, what the made-in-America components are to this legislation. So there's internal debates within the US about it, particularly around things like hydrogen. And then, of course, there's a secondary reaction to our partners and allies around the world who are actually less excited about this. From their perspective, they see it more as protectionism than they see it as a climate move ahead. That's certainly one of the questions we need to handle. That is, what about the double-sword interpretations of all these policies being put out? Let's go to the industry side. Business leaders sitting here. We have 800 of them this time at the World Economic Forum. Now, tell me more, sir, about how business leaders are articulating both the grand plans. These two wonderful ladies have just illustrated from their parts of the world. And what does it really mean for businesses? Yes. Thank you very much. I'm very much impressed. And I've heard the European approach and how to overcome that kind of climate change issues. And the United States approach. I was very much impressed by the IRAs challenge. Because one, the European challenge is mainly consists of the renewable and hydrogen and other kind of pure green technologies. And then the American approach is also promoting and advocating a lot the hydrogen and the new technologies. And those are the very big incentives. But at the same time, from the perspective of the business side, especially our company, especially in the series, is a technology company. And our core businesses, the energy, has been, I think, over five decades and so on. The energy has been the core business. And we have promoted and will enhance the multiple pathways toward carbon neutrality. Because we have been working very hard in Europe to provide with some hydrogen-related technologies. And in the United States, we have been working very hard to supply the studies and physical studies and commercialization of the carbon capture and utilization and storage system. At the same time, we are exploring the hydrogen business opportunities. But we do need to think about the other countries, the remaining part of the world. And there are a lot of companies and regions that need a little traditional technologies, utilizing their existing infrastructure, energy infrastructure. So of course, mainly due to their developing stage, economical situations and so on, they cannot afford the new technologies at once. And so we need to, yes, provide them with the less carbon dioxide emission technologies, like the converting from coal firing to natural gas firing technologies. And then the natural gas with the carbon capture systems and so on. By doing so, we can optimize all over the world the movement toward the carbon neutrality. And it is very important for us. Mr. Miyanaga raised a very important point about the diversity of the stages of development of all economies that we're facing today. So Madam Commissioner, naturally, I would not go to you about that. Well, the European continent is looking quote unquote inside, but actually, of course, with the Global Vision. How are you trying to facilitate or articulate what this gentleman have just suggested? How are the Europeans likely to work with these realities of the world while not using the policies as a trade protection tool? First of all, the European Union has never aimed to close our borders. We do know that right now, we are very dependent on imported fossil fuels. And even if we achieve our climate neutrality, we still need some additional green hydrogen that we will not be able to produce ourselves from our trading partners. That means that in the recent years, when I was traveling around to find alternative LNG supplies, we always offered our partners also future-proof partnerships. That means partnerships on hydrogen, but also on critical raw materials. And we have signed many memorandums of understandings across the globe, also for raw materials, because we do know that if we finished these very dangerous dependence on Russian fossil fuels, we don't want to end up being dependent on one single supplier. So we call it T-risking, creating many first-worthy partnerships. And on critical raw materials, we have signed these, for example, with Canada and Kazakhstan, with Chile, and many several African countries. Now, European Union is also very diverse. We have 27 member states, very different geographical locations. For example, in northern part, we have lots of potential for offshore wind, because we have shallow coasts of waters. In southern part, we have to promote more floating wind. And then we have our neighbors. Many of those are still very dependent on coal. We try to promote renewables by offering them also trade prospects. So we are not only supporting the interconnections between European member states, but we have decided also that we will support subsea cables that will connect us with northern Africa, or through the Black Sea, with Georgia and Azerbaijan. So and we have even closer partnership with Ukraine, of course, and with Western Balkan countries. So the single market that we do have is a very attractive market. And by connecting our closest neighbors with us, we are also promoting renewables in these regions. What about in the US? Of course, Professor, don't let me limit you to a US perspective, because I know you are the expert in the field. But about that question, we know this is a very interesting year, 2024. In November, we're going to see something happening in the country. So how do you see the vulnerability of all the current plans? What does that mean for all the other stakeholders to plan in advance and look at all the possibilities? Sure. Well, it's actually an interesting year for the world in that respect. About half of the world's population will be going to elections this year. So it's not just the United States, although you could make the argument that that is perhaps one of the most consequential elections that we'll see. And I think there are considerable concerns about whether or not a different administration, a Republican administration, per se, would be as supportive of the IRA-type legislation that we've seen in place thus far. And I think the hope and expectation of many advocates of this legislation and this approach is that they are providing such broad-based benefits to the US population that they're building constituencies that are not partisan in nature. So if you look at a map and you see how these different policies are expected to benefit different states and different communities, there's actually a disproportionate benefit expected to red states or Republican states. And so the idea is this, hopefully over time, will be over even in the course of this year, it will be a little less politicized. So I think time will tell, but certainly we're moving in the direction where more and more of the population will benefit from some of these programs. And at the same time, it's more and more evident to the US population that climate change or a change in the weather is certainly something that affects us all in particular direct ways with the very large price tags for reconstruction of storms and other critical weather events that have happened just in the last year. Could I just say one thing building on your question to the commissioner earlier about helping the developing world? Because I think it's very, as an American, I'm acutely aware, 88% of the emissions that are going to happen in the future are happening outside the United States. So it's absolutely critical to the world if we are to make this energy transition, and if we're to do it on the timeframe that we anticipate or not anticipate, we hope for, that the developing world needs to be brought in and needs to be assisted in making this transition at the same time. And so like many in this room, I was at COP 28 this year in a big focus on climate finance. And I think the focus has shifted to trying to augment the huge flows of finance that are needed to get to the developing world. But we also have to think about how that finance is delivered and what that finance is for. If you speak to leaders in the global south, and we hope will be joined by the minister very shortly, sometimes there's the perception that Western entities want to lend money so that the developing countries can buy goods from Western countries. Well, that's not actually achieving what is needed. What is needed is climate finance to build competitiveness in the global south so that they can be part of the supply chain for a clean energy industry. And that is the kind of the goal, the vision that we should all have in order to make this a more equitable transition and therefore one that can actually happen ideally on the timeframe that the climate requires. Yes, just as everybody is very well aware, as the debates in COP 28 and earlier, a lot of the questions are really surrounding about the traditional emitters, the storage of emissions already piled up over the history by the developed economies and also the growth of the developing countries. But of course, we're not dividing the world into two. But rather, how can we work as one? I think that is what people have realized after several years of great debate, hopefully. But go to you on that, because we see even developing economies, the business partner you're working with are very diversified. For example, some of them are raw materials providers for the new, so-called new energy. New energy. And for example, some in Africa, some in Latin America, as I mean Asia as well. Of course, also North America and Europe, but minority. Secondly, you also see India and China. The minister will be with us, hopefully soon. China, I'm originally coming from that country. You see tremendous development of a new energy. By the way, it has already become the biggest exporter of cars and vehicles and one of the biggest exporters of new energy as well. Solar panel, everything that this goes on. So very diversified, even looking at the so-called global south. How do you see when you are doing business with them, when you are lining up your global agenda, how will these factors work into your articulation of the policies and implementations? From, yes. I think there are a variety of the wide range of the perspectives, even in the business, private and business sectors. Like the financial institute or the trading companies or the raw material investment investors. Those are, those will be are, yes, influenced by the political changes and some rivalries and so on. They should be very careful and how to handle it, some investment. But I think the technology side, technological solution provider, yes, they need to, yes, continue their effort to advance their technologies and improve the more, yes, innovations or the encouraged innovations and others. And such kind of activities and will, yes, provide the developing countries and late coming regions with the early advantage, like a kind of the skipping effect because they can skip some technologies. They can just use the new technologies. But I think they are, but still it is very, yes, helpful for them to use and improve the existing facilities. At the same time, the jumping effect, the speaking, the new technology adoptions. And then we would like to be the provider of wide range of both technologies, most advanced one and the new technologies and the conventional, yes, is a kind of the, yes, the auxiliary technologies, but still very important and effective. And then the, I think the two, yes, encourage that kind of activities. We should be very, yes, close, well connected with the financial institutions and others to this part should be kept as a long-term investment. And then the regardless the political changes and others. Of course, the other part of we need, we understand the investors and others can, yes, and we can be, yes, influenced or it could be influenced very much. Then the, depending on such kind of issues, but still the fundamental and basic layers of the technology side should be, yes, and the private sector of that kind of engaged in such business. The, we should be very consistent and make our best efforts to continue the innovations. Consistency and long-term vision. Long-term vision. That's what you are saying, an implementation, of course. And I'm so glad, ladies and gentlemen, we are now joined by the minister from India, Mr. Hardip Singh Puri. Minister is the minister of petroleum and natural gas and also minister of housing and urban affairs from his country. Thank you so much, sir. Fighting all the morning traffic to get here. We really appreciate that. Earlier, we are all expecting your perspective, coming from an emerging economy, a fast growing economy. Your understanding of the topic today, please. No, let me start by saying that the changes that are taking place in the world, we are facing multiple crises. And for a country like India, which now has, I think the largest population in the world, it requires a transition to sustainability without in any way, jeopardizing or undermining the need to deliver basic welfare to a large and growing population. Now, let me set the context, do some context setting on where we are just now. We are close to a $4 trillion economy, but with a lot of developmental challenges. That involves, and you referred to it as a fast growing. I've also heard the word fastest growing. Well, we are currently, I think the last three quarters, our rate of growth was upwards of 7.2, 7.3%. If you look at the two portfolios that I have the privilege of dealing with, let me start with the petroleum and natural gas. If you look at the global scenario today, India's consumption is growing at three times the global average. In the next 20 years or so, India will account for 25% of the energy demand of the world globally, one country. If you look at the housing and urban affairs ministry that I'm also associated with, we are, and I'm not citing a figure which I have come up with, it's a Mackenzie study of a few years ago. India is currently in the position of building between 700 and 900 million square meters of urban space every year, which is the equivalent of a Chicago. Now, given these broad pointers, today I think what happens in India is also important for the rest of the world. I mean, I was at Davos, I think that was two years ago, when the Russia-Ukrain military factor was very much in everybody's mind. I said then and I say that now that all these new challenges that we have to face, we have to face them pragmatically. And I say this not to provoke anyone, but to just mention, if India had chosen at that point of time not to be pragmatic, we would have had a situation where oil would have gone beyond $200. Why? Because in India we cannot stop, we import 85% of our crude and we have to deal with issues of availability, affordability and sustainability. If India had allowed itself to be put into a situation where we were to draw on the same resources, but other parts of the world did not take the kind of position we took, we are acutely conscious of that. And as a result of which, if you look at the LNG market, I mean you can quantify what the cost has been to them. But today for us in India, I think it's paramount that we achieve all this, which I mean availability, there's never been any difficulty on that. Affordability, yes, I think, we have one of the few countries, Miyanage-san would perhaps know that. I think Japan is another country where oil prices in the last two years at the bank have actually declined. In India, the cost of petrol over the two years, why? Because we've had to forego central government revenue because at the same time, whilst we were feeding 800 million people three meals of dry ration in a day, something which we are continuing for five years. So I would say that in these new challenges which arise and how we face them, there is a very strong listing, but there is also a global commitment. We have not allowed our domestic preoccupations to in any way undermine or dilute our commitment to sustainability. That's brought out in biofuels. We are making rapid progress in what we are doing for green hydrogen, et cetera. Okay. I see a key word that you just mentioned, Mr. Minister, which is pragmatism. How is that articulated and also interpreted, Madam Commissioner, from your side? Well, I just want to comment on that. India held last year the President's of G20 and it was a very strongly, well, so that India presented this pragmatic approach from European Union point of view. We did our utmost to avoid implications that will put the rest of the world in very bad position, despite the fact that gas crisis was artificially created by Russia. This was not a result of sanctions, but it was unilateral decision made by Russia to cut gas supplies to European companies, despite the fact that they had long-term contracts. And as a result, yes, European companies had to find some alternatives and LNG was a solid alternative, but we knew that we cannot cover all the lost volumes from Russia with LNG because otherwise it would have created huge deficit. And that's why we promoted fuel switch where it was possible we replaced gas, these renewables, and just listening now that the demand in India will be grow so fast that cheaper alternatives to cover this demand are always homegrown renewables, just not to be so dependent on imports. That what we did two years ago was first year in Europe when we produced more electricity from wind and solar than from gas. And last year 2023 was even better. We do have very ambitious plans for our offshore wind. That means that we have to promote all the actions to expand our creeds. And I think that this is one sector where we can share our knowledge, how to interconnect different markets and how to use the existing creeds in maximum. And this is something that we are doing also. We do have these special partnerships. We call them just energy transition partnerships where we help members of countries across the globe who are very dependent on coal right now to opt for cleaner alternatives. So we are very pragmatic. We do understand that even if Europe is climate neutral, this is not enough. We need to find partners and we are willing to share our knowledge and our technology. As we all know, Professor, it is not just about, it is really not about political correctness, but really it is about making all the economies beneficial, benefiting from the latest discussion that we are having. But here comes an interesting issue. Role material is an important one. Our business leaders just mentioned. For example, let's just say a country in Africa on its way to prosperity, but facing many challenges. But there are also a lot of developing economies in Africa that are doing very well. But what I'm just saying is an abstract example, not to mention anybody's name. It has the best role materials for some of the renewable energies that we need in the world. We see this tremendous competition looking for these role materials. But at the same time, people are also concerned whether the old story will be repeated again, that the role materials will be out of that country for exports at a price, sounds reasonable, but still that country will continue to be poor, which we saw decades already happening. So are we really doing things to make sure those stories are not repeated? If you look at our audience today, they're coming from everywhere. Maybe they have their own stories to tell, later in our Q&A session. But this is one of those things in people's mind. We really need to address this. Professor, your thoughts on this. Sure. I think you're addressing a number of things in the abstract example. In adding to those three. Which could be conceived as you're talking about, the Congo and cobalt, or there are places that really are very dominant right now in the clean energy supply chain. And I would say there's a couple of concerns here. One is on the side of the countries looking to secure those materials in terms of what is required there. And the commissioner mentioned that it's just sensible, pragmatic, strategic, not to be overly reliant on one player in the market. Not just for the production of these raw materials, but for the processing as well. And that's where the supply chain actually gets very, very constricted, is because so many of these minerals are actually processed in China. So they may be produced around the world, but they're processed in one country. And that creates bottlenecks, potentially geopolitically or for natural disasters or for any types of reasons. So I think on the one hand, from the perspective of the consumer, there's the need to diversify the suppliers. From the perspective of the producer, the Congo or another country that may have this, there is, I would say, an imperative to see that this race to secure these raw materials leads to broader-based development and doesn't recreate what has been known as the resource curse in a lot of other countries that have been able to develop and export oil that has come with a certain number of development challenges. And here, I'd say we still have a long way to go to make sure that the investments going into these raw material productions are ones which can be broad-based. And I think there's a role to develop international standards here so that you can have agreements among countries and there are efforts in progress where there can be an agreement if you uphold these standards in terms of labor and other factors, then you'll have access to concessional financing. Pragmatism is also what I heard from Mr. Minister. Of course, what you have said is a beautiful picture. And yet, sometimes we know beautiful pictures might not function at any time. So do we wait for the beautiful picture to be drawn up before we act? Or we will go with the imperfect picture, but work on issues to avoid repeating of the old story, Mr. Minister. Madam moderator, I think what the professor said initially is that you combine the large number of issues and you compress them into the question that you put to her. If you are talking about access to raw materials, well, the materials you're dealing with today are strategic minerals or whatever. That may have a slightly different thing, but this whole process of accessing raw materials has been going on for centuries. And as a student of history, I mean, you can look at it. What is different now? There are fundamental differences. I think what we have to take into account is today, and I speak from my Indian experience, there are literally millions of people in different parts of the world who require access to clean energy. I'll give you one of our schemes, which is the Ujwala scheme, which involves providing liquefied petroleum gas, LPG, to economically weaker sections of our population. And we've already handed out about 110 million of those connections. And that the gas that is supplied there for cooking purposes, otherwise they are using firewood, coal, and all this. So if you have to wean them away and we subsidize it marginally to the, at the point of, it's a consumer's subsidy. And we have also taken electricity to every household, clean drinking water to every household. I think there are large parts of the world. Now, if you're talking about extractive industries and parts of large continents where they are rich in terms of minerals, yes, I think we have to ensure that the benefits of that also go down to their population. The professor was mentioning standards. I mean, those have been discussed. I've been a diplomat professional 39 years. So we've discussed labor standards. We've discussed other issues. Clearly that didn't go far enough. It didn't go far enough. And so many attempts have been made because people mouth those platitudes if I may, but we don't act. Now, what do we need to do? I think fundamentally to bring people, and if you're talking about Africa, I don't have no intention of Africa, large parts of Latin America and other parts of the world. We need to take those benefits of development to those people. Well said, Mr. Miyanaka. Yes. I think for raw material, it is very crucial. And I think it will take to complete the full process of new development of the raw materials from extractions and refining and smelting and selection and smelting and product manufacturing. And then all such investment will be very big. It will be very big and it takes very long. And investment recovery, yes. And also the most advanced technology should be applied to I think the new investment. And then I think there will be a lot of, but at the same time, we do hope such kind of technology will be supported by the new energies and green energies and less carbon dioxide emission technologies and so on. And then such kind of overall investment will be secured through some international scheme. That will be very important because I think without that kind of security, we cannot devote ourselves to such kind of improvement on development and supply the equipment. And I think probably in the pretty new future, I do hope personally and as a management of business, private sector, there will be such kind of another scheme, international scheme to secure that kind of the raw material development in the other countries and hopefully in developing and emerging countries. It will help their growth. Thank you very much. I think we have very limited for questions time, but I do want to invite the expertise coming from the audience. Maybe we quickly have two questions at no time. Oh, OK. Sorry, everyone. Well, thank you so much, all the panelists for your wonderful input coming from different perspectives. I'm sure discussion like this will continue. And it's very important that we are all involved in such discussions. Appreciate it. Have a great day. Thank you. Thank you.