Josette Sheeran opened the session framing the situation. a silent tsunami. potential food coups. full house. lots of interest.

Vejjajiva, prime minister of Thailand
Gates, head of Bill and Melinda Gates foundation
Rosenfeld, CEO of Kraft [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irene_Rosenfeld]
Annan, former sect of UN [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kofi_Annan]
Treschow, Ericsson, Unilever. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Treschow]

Annan spoke about the efforts to revolutionize the production of crops.
Vejjajiva spoke about the supply chain and the distortion of the marketplace thru subsidies. he talked about his country and the reality of those that produce the food are typically the poorest, often not even being able to purchas their own food.
Gates 70% of the world's poorest are farmers. they are the most vulnerable to seasonality. this can impact when a crop fails. then we think of children, if the kids had had better nutrition, then they would not have died. the connection between nutrition and infant mortality is clear. Agra [http://www.agra-alliance.org/] is working to help african farmers. he spoke will and strongly about the efforts that the world is making in response to the food crisis.
Rosenfeld the problem is real about getting the right food to the right people at the right price. she then went on to really say nothing. really weak. but good at using alot of words to say nothing.
Treschow 2/3rds of all ingredients at Unilever come from the agricultural production. nutrition, hygiene, and potable water. these are the three areas that we are focusing on. we are moving more and more to smaller farmers. 500,000 for vegetables. they believe in help for self help, but they do not want to be in a position of taking over.

fresh solutions?
dont think of the money in, but rather the effectiveness of the each solution. simple things can really make such a huge difference. more cooperation between large and small holders in agriculture.

amazing session. my first this year. too many meetings and not enough opportunity to schmooze and learn.

Hugh Herr, professor at MIT [http://mitworld.mit.edu/speaker/view/748]. great presentation on his work augmenting the human. he is looking at active augmentation.

Henry Markram, [http://bluebrain.epfl.ch/Jahia/site/bluebrain/op/edit/lang/en/pid/18900] Blue Brain Project. EPFL [http://bluebrain.epfl.ch/]. mapping the brain so that he can reconstruct it. the procedure to rebuild a brain is now here. they completed a proof of concept this past year. by 2020 there will be a brain model. byt 2030 you will be able to purchase a copy of your brain. the beginning of the era of the virtual human. the communication will be optical rather than wired. this is one scary dude.

Kids Phone presentation is really cool. it

hugh points out that the human part of his body is constantly aging while his feet, which are artificial, will always get better.

Herz, CH2MHill, Fluor, Siemens, Arup, GDF-Suez, Cisco, Mayors of Milano, San Francisco, Rio and London

ICLI made a survey of its member cities asking about their 'big issues'. 47 replied. the results were then charted in three axis:
-time
-how important is an issue
-your degree of certainty

Discussion:
what we need is a search engine of what the organizations/networks are already doing. the project need to have agreed objectives and create a roadmap to achieve what is the intent. another talk-shop is not required. the mayors noted a plethora of meetings and
conferences.

group of mayors - one body which will actually do something on one issue
perhaps 10 mayors steering board and then lets look at common purchase of three items/objectives. and this should be facilitated by a group.

the mayors expressed a frustration with the C40 in that it is full of great ideas and intentions, but has not really delivered.

the SlimCity Cards are great, but we need to ensure that they are
vetted
several layers
trusted digital wikipedia

Gavin on San Francisco
- universal health care initiative
- third party CO2 review
- rolled back C02 to 6% below 1992 levels
- every construction must be LEAD certified
- most aggressive solar program
- green car procurement - created an alternative fuel cab fleet

Letizia on Milano
-pollution charge has resulted in a reduction in respiratory disease, accidents and congestion
- city district heating using soil water - [ground heat pump?]
- city tax reduction on builidngs using energy efficient technologies
- two new catalytic converters installed at power plants

Clear Plan for 2009
great structure to federate mayors
who is core group
who manages
how does it function?
1. increase number of mayors
2. sharper mission statement with clear deliverables
3. green procurement
- green fleet -
- C02 capture methods
- congestion charging
- retrofitting
- waste

london hosting a meeting c40 in 2010 on waste.

An invitation from Colin de Luc and John Gage convinced me to join this event. John Doerr and Al Gore spoke to the small gathering. John about his vision for green energy and Al about his enthusiasm for the new administration. both were so strong in their views. I spoke with Al afterwards at length about the Drivers of Change. He is writing a book on a similar theme.

OK. I got to meet and chat with Tom Friedman. I think he is amazing. I unabashedly shoved an UrbanLife2030 card into his hand and told him that we were looking for the urban visions that result from his thinking. Too bad that the project was stopped.

on Obama.
an new era of responsibility. the price and promise of citizenship..... she spoke well, but nothing new. until she closed with a note on climate change. she reiterated the administration's emphasis on working on this crisis.

we intent to meet this moment in history with the same spirit and hope that has guided america and its friends and allies......

The Silent Financial Crisis: Energizing Energy Businesses in Rural Africa

The session was principally about bringing electricity to the rural areas of Africa in order to alleviate poverty. This is seen as crucial in order to achieve the Millennium Development Goals. Smart demand is also important. It will do no good if electricity is brought to the countryside if the practices of daily life do not change.

Mozambique will be adding significant hydro-power [thru PPP], PV is thru direct donors [Denmark] as well as coal that cannot be exported and natural gas. More and more gas is being discovered thru partnership with Satoil. This gas/resource can be utilized for across the continent.

The Finance Minister of Saudi Arabia followed with a few words. Their focus has been on clean water. It is in its fourth phase. They are now looking at the energy poor. This will be thru two types of programmes. One focuses on major project, and the other on smaller projects. Major projects have more partners. He pleads for a focus on cooking and the rituals surrounding cooking.

it was pointed out that the first meeting of this group occurred in 2005 and there is not yet a project on the ground. it was also pointed out by one member that this should be driven by the local communities rather than the governments. the process needs to be clearly defined so that this happens. now, we will have a first project in Leshoto.

senegal is also working on creating eco-village projects which create food security as well as energy security. essentially independent entities.

the head of the South African Development Bank pointed out that it would be vital that do not increase the complexity of the funding access, AND to ensure that there are common rules for the access and criteria. this last is really a huge challenge.

the head of BP Solar spoke about the challenge of matching funding and hardware. often there is a pot of money that is then used to purchase equipment that is really not what the community needs, it was simply expedient. the other challenge is when the real needs of the community are not being understood and respected.

the current models of the rural economies do not sustain the systems. we must ensure that there are methods to make a profit so that the system can be paid for. the other problem is the lack of entrepreneurship remaining in the countryside once the systems are in place,. the other challenge is stability. not political, but the rules of the game as far as the P+L for a rural system. the minimum return seems to be 10 years, thus the rules cannot keep changing.

notes from the session. it is a full house with lots of grey suits and lighter grey hair. it is hosted by Geoff from CNBC.

low carbon growth only
focus on policy. if the policy is right, then the transision will be simple. otherwise no way
'gotta do the maths' - the work has to pan out.

so, where do we stand?
every country is continuing to grow its emissions. the US is growing sharply. the momentum is pushing with no end in sight. if we need to get to 450ppm. in order to get there, the world has to peak between 2015 and 2020. then the emissions must shrink rapidly. we cannot afford to deviate from this. this means that all countries need to reduce.

next step in the session was to make a timeline from 1970 to 2009. filled up with lots of events.

Results
Global Frameworks required with clarity and reliability for the investor. there needs to be a total global participation. the price needs to be certainty in the price so that the EMissions are lowered. the price is simply a derivative of the process. stricter caps are needed. we need Copenhagen to guarantee caps. a similar conversation took place in the institution. there could be a per barrel levy that would then be put into a pot.

a level playing field has never existed and never will. the climate change will result in a new playing field. we cannot pretend that it will b now.

long term stability in the regulation is vital. this is the only thing that Copenhagen REALLY needs to agree upon.

it seems clear that the BRICs will not agree to mandatory targets.

my group was talked with talking about technology. we suggested that 50% of everything MUST come from efficiency. there needs to be a recosideration of EVERYTHING that is part of our daily lives. in addition, tehre needs to be supply chain transparency. we suggested the following four projects needed to be worked on
1. smart grids
2. mandatory efficiency targets for all poower production
3. energy storage
4. [A]CCS - atmospheric carbon capture and storage.

Real Estate group hosted.