• Titel: World Summit on Sustainable Development in Johannesburg

• Untertitel: Sustainable Development and the Role of Solar Thermal Power
• Redner/in: Bundesumweltminister Jürgen Trittin
• Anlass: Parallel Event am 03. September 2002: "North-South Cooperation for a Sustainable Energy Future"
• Datum/Ort: 03.09.2002, Johannesburg / Deutscher Stand im Ubuntu Village

Es gilt das gesprochene Wort

Ladies and Gentlemen,

I am delighted that at the end of the World Summit, once again such highly respected and important international guests are attending Germany's stand. I have listened to your contributions with great interest. I am pleased, too, that we have been able to find a moment before the Summit ends to have an early exchange of experience of these strenuous but stimulating days. To be honest, personally, I would have liked to see more decisiveness and more ambitious goals in a number of points. With regard to the utilisation of renewable energies, I am firmly convinced that this would have greatly benefited all countries, remembering especially the growing number of serious environmental catastrophes caused by the increasing CO2 emissions. In Germany, we are experiencing these impacts in Dresden and other regions right now by floods never seen before.

I am convinced that there is no way around the need to drastically reduce greenhouse gas emissions and consequently the consumption of fossil fuels. In Germany we have introduced a new directionin energy policy including measures for energy savings, increasing energy efficiency, the phase-out of nuclear power and the substantial development of renewables. E.g. by the middle of this century, the use of renewable energies should be expanded to a market share of 50 %.

It would not be fair to expect so-called developing countries to reduce their energy needs as well - actually their growing population and per capital consumption means an increasing energy demand. I would, however, warn them against repeating the same mistakes made by the industrialised countries, Germany included. We concentrated solely on nuclear and fossil energy sources and did not consider the damage we were thus inflicting on our environment and our economies, what in future possibly will be impossible to pay.

Furthermore, renewable energies have already developed into an economic factor in Germany, securing 130 000 jobs, with a continuing upward trend. This is in spite of the fact that the densely populated Germany only has average climatic conditions for exploiting renewable energy sources.

This applies in particular to solar thermal power plants, which we cannot operate in Germany due to our low solar radiation, but nevertheless is a very future-oriented technology. Countries rich in sunshine can harness it not only to build up a sustainable energy supply, thus playing a crucial part in climate protection, but also to make themselves independent of expensive energy imports and in the medium term even to market solar produced electricity as a valuable export good. In this context, Germany is researching and further developing all the technological branches of solar thermalpower - i.e. parabolic trough, dish and tower plants by 10 Mio Euro within the years 2001 till 2003. This will support e.g. the development, first installation and operating of the parabolic trough "EURO TROUGH" in California.

Due to the low number of the already installed plants, from the point of view the individual business solar thermal power plants are still more expensive than fossil fuel plants. This however, is not an appropriate view to take, as it ignores the benefits to the overall economy - e.g. avoided external costs, positive effects on the labour market, avoided air pollution, independence from energy imports and long-term secure and stable electricity prices. Further cost reductions are nevertheless necessary, although these should mainly be achieved through a broad market introduction. The costs for solar thermal power plants will only be sufficiently reduced to allow these plants to compete with fossil fuel power stations, if they are produced in quantity. This requires a global market introduction strategy with commitment from the international community.

Together with the Global Environment Facility, the Kreditanstalt für Wiederaufbau, and representatives from 16 countries, we have therefore established a Type II Partnership. This partnership aims bringing together interested parties and stakeholders from across the world and jointly create opportunities to use solar thermal power plants. The partnership must on the one hand elaborate innovative concepts for financing, risk diversification and the drafting of offers, while on the other must advise decision-makers and specify the necessary conditions for the energy industry. Investors, manufacturers, banks, insurers and planners, together with the decision-makers in the target countries, will only be able to develop competitive concepts if there are long term prospects. This initiative will create those prospects. I give my full support to this partnership and would be delighted if it were to expand and actively involve further partners. I can moreover well imagine that the strategy we are adopting with this initiative can also act as a model for future public-private partnerships for market and need oriented technological transfer. It could thus be of great interest for very different technology sectors.

At this point I would also like to mention the step taken by Spain - which I consider to be most exemplary. Spain, which is also a member of the partnership, is the first country in the Earth's sunbelt to extend its already existing Electricity Feed Act to include solar thermal power plants. Thus for the first time in Europe, the conditions for a commercial operation of solar thermal powerplants have been created.

Far greater commitment is needed to achieve a sustainable development and energy supply. It is clear that these topics are not tasks for individual countries alone, and that they can only be solved in an international cooperation. Many approaches for this have been discussed at this World Summit and initiatives were presented. But these initiatives can only succeed with the commitment ofall partners. Perhaps we can encourage you to become involved in these partnerships. It is up to all of us to exploit these opportunities.