Dr Gerhard Ott - World Energy Council

19th World Energy Council, Sydney, Australia 5 - 9 September, 2004
Presentation of the 2004 Global Energy Award
Acceptance Speech
Dr Gerhard Ott
Dear Tony,
Thank you so much for your very kind and very personal words!
Holding this precious cup in my hands, this exquisite QUAICH – the ancient drinking
vessel of the Scots – reminds me, of course, of Ian Lindsey, WEC´s Secretary for
many years, who initiated WEC´s Global Energy Award. Many of you will remember
Ian Lindsay – the Scotsman working from London, but with his heart divided between
Scotland and Africa, the continent of his birth and his deep concern.
Dear friends,
receiving today the World Energy Council´s Global Energy Award 2004 is a great
honour and a great pleasure for me for more than just one reason:
For one, awarding me with this unique and distinguished prize you mark with a
very special highlight the almost exactly 30 years which I had the privilege to work
for and with the World Energy Council: The beginning was in the fall of 1974, right
after the Detroit Congress, when I had the chance to work with the unforgettable
John Kiely of Bechtel on WEC´s first global study "Looking Ahead to 2020“. In the
following years I had the responsibility to organize the Munich Congress 1980
together with Peter v. Siemens. Later, in 1989 in Montreal, I took over as
Chairman of WEC, with my first Executive Assembly to be chaired in Rio de
Janeiro, in Latin America which, as many of you know, always has been very
close to my heart.
As Chairman then I had the pleasure to lead our organisation through the
memorable Congresses 1992 in Madrid and 1995 in Tokyo. The Congress in
Tokyo, by the way, was WEC´s first highly visible move into the Asia-Pacific Area
– a move, from which we have benefitted greatly, not least thanks to the untiring
efforts of our good friend Shige-etsu Miyahara, a wonderful host in 1995 and
today an energetic Vice Chair for Asia.
I also take pride in following Ian McRae and Marcel Boiteux, who were honoured
in 1998 and 2001 – both distinguished, exceptional personalities which have set a
high standard for this award. You will certainly remember that both, in their words
of thanks, expressed a message reflecting their lifelong committment and
experience.
Ian McRae stressed the need to fight poverty:

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"The best way to combat poverty is to provide economic growth and social
upliftment and the key to this is the availability of usable, efficient and
affordable energy.“
And Marcel Boiteux, in his brilliant way of formulating the essential, made a case
for nuclear energy as an integral part of the overall energy mix:
"On peut le dire, il faut le dire, le Monde ne pourra se passer de l´énergie
nucléaire.“
You will agree that both messages are as compelling and valid today as they
were in 1998 and in 2001.
Also the message I would like to leave with you today, my friends, reflects the
experience I have made over the years, witnessing all the varying stages of energy
politics – from planification to liberalisation – and of energy economics – from an
unsustainable low to an unsustainable high oil price. And because also in the future
developments hardly ever will be even and steady, but will rather come in waves,
sometimes choppy and contradictory, it is the more important, I think, that we at WEC
concentrate on – and stay loyal to – a very few fundamentals:
For one, we should focus our work on issues and strategies of a global and longterm
nature – as against often too narrow and too short-term politics.
Also, and WEC with its over 90 Member Committees from all parts and cultures of
this world is the ideal instrument for this, we should committ ourselves to creating
a better understanding of the needs of developing countries in order to build
bridges instead of deepening the gaps and rifts between the so-called First and
Third Worlds.
The World Energy Council, Ladies and Gentlemen, in fact has already made
considerable progress in this respect. As examples of giving recognition to the socalled
Third World, we can refer to the many Congresses and Executive Assembly
Meetings we have had over the recent years in these parts of the globe: In Latin
America in 2001 (Buenos Aires), in Africa in 2002 (Egypt) and 1994 (South Africa), in
Asia in 2000 (India) and 1997 (Thailand). Still more important, however, is the fact
that WEC has decided here in Sydney to strengthen its regional work. And let me
add a personal remark: I think we have been very fortunate, indeed , to have had for
the last three years Antonio del Rosario as our Chairman – representing all of WEC,
of course, but with a particular focus on developing countries. Thank you, Tony, for
your initiatives and for your wise and thoughtful leadership!
Now, mentioning the remarkable progress already made does not mean, of course,
that our new Chairman, André Caillé and his team would have to fear that they might
run out of work. Actually, with the initiatives he has presented here in Sydney he is
taking on his shoulders a rather heavy bundle of tasks. Let me wish you every
success – in particular for the project of continuing and expanding the Patrons
Program, which deserves every support!

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I should like to add, my friends, a few thoughts on WEC and the role it could and
should play in the future. To define this role realistically, two aspects, in my view, are
important:
First, we have to acknowledge that WEC today has to act in a difficult
environment and under circumstances which often are averse to what makes the
value of WEC, because we are living in an inverted, or even perverted world: Let
me take as an example a major energy company which has just announced a
solid profit, distinctly higher than in the preceding year – every reasonable
observer would expect the price of its shares to increase. Not in our rather
paradox world of today: The share-price went down because the announced
profit, although higher than ever, was lower than expected by the omniscient
analysts (whose "objectiveness“ very often is hardly more than the fact that they
are not prejudiced in any way by any real business-experience of their own).
With such analysts pressing the management of companies every quarter for
further cost-reductions and ever higher profits, the management of such
companies will have serious doubts whether it should continue its financial
contributions to an organisation like WEC or its national Member Committee –
institutions the value of which lies mainly in global and long-time work which,
naturally, is hardly measurable in Dollars, Pounds or Euros, and which certainly
cannot directly contribute to the quarterly profits urged for by analysts.
The only possible answer for WEC in this situation is, I think, to maintain, to
confirm – but also to "market“ more efficiently! – its character and value as a longterm
oriented, strategic, global "think-tank“ – an institutuion which is approaching
problems with balance, not bias, is analysing problems based on fact, not fantasy,
is answering problems with solutions unconventional, not uniform, and is acting
on all problems in a spirit of challenge, not complacency. Above all, we must
withstand the temptation to compete with the prevailing short-termism of today´s
energy markets, because this would make WEC in the end lose its unique
identity.
Secondly, and notwithstanding the difficult process WEC has to live through now
and in the years to come, I am convinced that the true value of WEC will be more
and more recognized due to a phenomenon, an apparent paradox in world
political trends: On the one hand there is a tendency to create ever larger units,
as in the case of the economic communities – Nafta, European Union, APEC etc.
Also, the resolution of global problems demands global action – WTO, UNCED,
Kyoto Protocol etc. On the other hand, and at the same time, there is a
widespread public dislike of what is seen as excessive centralisation. The
dominance of large, faceless bureaucracies which appear to disregard the needs
of individuals and local communities is more and more resented.
These two seemingly opposed trends are, in reality, compatible – compatible
through organisations like the World Energy Council – non-commercial and nongovernmental,
committed to people, not to ideologies. There I see an important –
and growing – role for WEC: As a catalyst between global necessities and
individual needs, working not through command and control, but through
cooperation and conviction. With its joint work together with UNDP and UNDESA,
culminating in the World Energy Assessment of 2002 and its recent update 2004,

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WEC has made a first important step in this direction. We all know, this was an
undertaking not without risks – that it became a success, we owe to the devoted
work and the persistance of people like John Baker, Emad El-Sharkawi and
Gerald Doucet. I am very glad to see that it is the firm will of our organisation to
continue, to consolidate and to expand this committment.
To conclude, my friends: I believe in WEC´s mission, I consider myself fortunate
having been able to contribute to its work, I am proud of the award received
today. Above all, I thank you for all the support I had from you over so many years
– and let me include in this thank explicitly my wife Marianne, the best
"ambassadress“ I could think of all those years.
My best wishes to you all!