Our Opportunity Summary
March 10-12 saw around 300 young people from 45 countries converge on Copenhagen for the inaugural 2009 Our Opportunity Summit, the first of a global series, grasping their opportunity to act for a clean, prosperous and secure energy future. Despite a focus on Europe, participants hailed from as far afield as Australia, China and Uganda, complementing a larger contingent from nearly all of the pan-European states.
The ambit of the summit was large, reflecting the multi-faceted complexities of energy planning. A wide array of topics squeezed into three days, including democratic rights, energy security in developing countries, energy network capacity building and climate change all made their way, in various forms, onto the agenda. Contributing to this mass of information, renowned energy and climate experts offered their perspectives, panellists representing a wide range of interests shared their visions and needled their peers, and summit participants shared their thoughts in a range of workshops.
The summit was undoubtedly a success. Participants and organisers alike enjoyed vigorous debates, shared a wealth of information, and made a host of friends, all against the backdrop of a cold Copenhagen early spring. None of it would have been possible without the commitment and contribution from participants, speakers and organisers alike. We would like to send a special greeting to our sponsors who enabled us to reach our goals. With a successful launch to the Our Opportunity Summit Series, Energy Crossroads Denmark looks forward to the next round of summits to be held in China, India, Singapore and California in 2009. We hope you do to.
Changing the Game
The backbone of the summit was the Changing the Game strategy game, developed specifically for the occasion, and played over the first two days. The game had several objectives. First, the objective was to teach, through hands-on demonstrations with LEGO(r) bricks, fundamental aspects of energy planning in Europe to the participants. The second objective, after grasping crucial energy planning concepts, was to engage participants in an informed dialogue on the best way forward for a clean and secure energy future in Europe. The third objective was to corroborate insights from participants' dialogue to define specific and prioritised policies that the participants found to be the best solutions for Europe's energy future. The successful outcome from the game was a cohesive selection of policies, selected by the participants after sustained debate, with a range of insights into how they might be implemented. The selected policies, and potential implementation plans, are here.
