On 22th and 23th November, 2019, United Europe’s 17th Young Professionals Seminar will take place in Paris (arrival on 21th, departure on 24th November). In cooperation with our company Member ENEDIS, we are inviting 25 young talents from all professions and all over Europe between 25 and 35 years to a seminar on:
Energy Transition and Climate Change
Is there a European answer?
The Energy transition and global warming will present us with one of the biggest economic and social challenges in the coming decades.
With annually rising temperatures, melting polar ice caps, an increasing number of hurricanes and floods, the overwhelming evidence and consensus among climate scientists is that man-made climate change is real and happening right now. This poses a significant threat for global economies and people’s lives, in the form of potential major human displacements due to floods and draughts or just malnutrition and famine.
Given their current policies the parties to the Paris Climate Agreement (COP21), set in December 2015, are still far from being on track to meet their goal of limiting global warming to well below 2°C.
Even so, some vital players, such as the USA, are intent on withdrawing from the agreement.
According to the study “Are companies resilient enough to climate change?“, published in 2017 by the global quality assurance and risk management company DNV GL, also companies are hardly responding to these changes.
While almost one in two companies expects climate change to impact its value chain over the next five years, only one in four companies is already implementing measures.
“The state will have to intervene to achieve the climate targets. But it has to do so in a well-considered manner,” warns Prof. Dr. Dr. Franz-Josef Radermacher, member of the board of directors of the Research Institute for Applied Knowledge Processing (FAW) in Ulm amongst other. “At present, we are panicking for regulatory measures, promoting supposedly sustainable investments, sanctioning others and thus destroying great values, although we are achieving very little for the climate overall.” According to Radermacher, the climate goals can only be successfully achieved “if the global, economic and social balance of power is taken into account”.
It is questionable whether further global warming can be slowed down or even stopped completely under the given conditions. And it is unclear how a European or global solution to the problem can be found.
In our Young Professionals Seminar in Paris the following questions will be discussed:
– Climate change prevention or adaptation or both for Europe?
– What are the drivers of climate change adaptation and what are the obstacles?
– What EU measures exist and how are they being implemented?
– What measures should the EU take to make environmental protection economically viable?
– What should be included in the European Green Deal proposed by the new European
Commission?
– What models and initiatives already exist?
– Should EU Member States relinquish their sovereignty over energy for the benefit of the EU?
– How do companies respond to the challenges?
– How can financial markets and their regulatory requirements drive/ aid in better pricing in
climate risk?
– Which companies have already taken action or plan to do so in the near future? Are there role
models?
– How can climate protection, technological progress, digitisation and the desire for a better
quality of life be brought together? How can a collision between trade and environmental
protection be prevented?
The seminar language will be English.
United Europe will cover transport costs and accommodation.
As a prework, applicants are required to write a short text (1 – 2 DIN A4 pages/6.500 characters max) about one of the mentioned questions above.
You are welcome to create the essay from your personal view and considering the specific situation of your country.
Applications must include this very text, a brief cover letter indicating interest and motivation (1 page, including the question, what you expect from this seminar), together with a CV (incl. a photo and the date of birth, max. 2 pages). All documents must be submitted electronically in PDF format in English language and should not exceed 2 GB. We can only consider complete applications.
Please send your application in one document until 8th October, 2019 (12:00 pm) to events@united-europe.eu.
We will inform the applicants about the decision on 17th October, 2019.
