The Energy Center of the Netherlands (ECN) has organised a Mini-Symposium on Development and Climate with a focus on Energy.  The Mini-Symposium was held at the Royal Tropical Institute in Amsterdam, The Netherlands, on 12 October 2010.  A background paper was prepared by Heleen de Coninck, Raouf Saïdi, Laura Würtenberger and Xander van Tilburg, all of ECN’s Policy Division.  The audience consisted of both international practitioners on low carbon development and Dutch senior policy makers.

The meeting was organized in recognition of the fact that, in recent years, climate and development issues have increasingly been discussed jointly, and the drivers behind this seem to include the realization that curbing emissions in the developed world only will not be enough to achieve internationally agreed climate stabilisation targets.  Other drivers which underpinned the meeting are the ‘development first’ position of developing countries in the international climate negotiations, and tightening budgets for both climate finance and ODA in the developed world.  Organisers of the meeting also recognized the emergence of policy instruments that address both development and climate, like the CDM and low carbon development strategies, and felt that there was the need for an investigation into the rationale of merging the policy agendas - to support an informed dialogue among Dutch policy makers and a broader international audience. 

Several experts were invited to share their views on framing development and climate and each one delivered a short speech from his/her own professional perspective after which there was a panel discussion on the topic. The experts included Prof Frans Berkhout of the Institute for Environmental Studies, Free University of The Netherlands, and Prof Abeeku Brew-Hammond, Director of The Energy Center, KNUST.  The Mini-Symposium was chaired by Bert Metz, a former Co-Chair of the Inter-Governmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Working Group III who is currently with the European Climate Foundation.

Prior to participating in the Mini-Symposium, the TEC Director visited ECN’s research laboratories in Petten, The Netherlands.  He was shown around the Bioenergy Conversion Laboratory and also met ECN experts from various divisions of the organisation including Wind Power Technology, Smart Grids and Energy Policy.  Prospects for collaboration between ECN and TEC were discussed, and promises was made on either side to work together to develop concrete collaborative projects in the areas of Wind Power Technology and Policy, and Smart Grids.