WASHINGTON INTERNATIONAL RENEWABLE ENERGY CONFERENCE ATTRACTS ADDITIONAL KEYNOTE SPEAKERS
WIREC 2008 Gathers International Leaders To Scale Up Renewable Energy
WASHINGTON, February 7, 2008—Prominent keynote speakers are rapidly confirming their participation at the Washington International Renewable Energy Conference (WIREC 2008) hosted by the U.S. Government, March 4-6, 2008.
"The U.S. Government is pleased that so many world renowned leaders will speak at WIREC 2008," said Ambassador Reno Harnish, Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Oceans, Environment and Science. "The lineup of confirmed speakers is world-class across the entire agenda and bodes well for attendees from around the globe that represent civil society, government, and business."
Confirmed speakers added to an already distinguished list include Andris Piebalgs, Commissioner for Energy, European Commission; Herman Scheer, General Chairman of the World Council for Renewable Energy (WCRE), Member of the German Bundestag; Walter Kohn, Nobel Laureate; Jose Sergio Gabrielli de Azevedo, President and CEO Petrobras; Buyelwa Sunjica, Minister of Minerals and Energy, South Africa; Marcelo Tokman, Minister of Energy Chile; Connie Hedegaard, Minister for Climate and Energy, Denmark; George Pataki, former New York Governor; Vinod Khosla, Founder and CEO, Khosla Ventures and Sun Microsystems; and David Hales, President, College of the Atlantic.
WIREC 2008 is comprised of a Ministerial-level meeting co-located with the Trade Show and Business Conference at WIREC 2008. The Trade Show and Business Conference are being organized by the American Council On Renewable Energy (ACORE) and 14 domestic and international renewable energy trade associations. For information about Official Side Events being held at WIREC 2008, please visit http://www.americanrenewables.org/about_official_side_events.htm.
WIREC 2008 is the third global ministerial-level conference on renewable energy, following events in Beijing in 2005 and Bonn in 2004. Additional speaker confirmations will be announced soon at www.wirec2008.gov. WIREC 2008 will take place at the Washington Convention Center in Washington, D.C.
The following are WIREC 2008 keynote speakers already announced:
Samuel Bodman, Secretary of Energy, U.S. Department of Energy
Dirk Kempthorne, Secretary of the Interior, U.S. Department of the Interior
Ed Schafer, Secretary of Agriculture, U.S. Department of Agriculture
Stephen Johnson, Administrator, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency of the United States
Millie Dresselhaus M.I.T. professor;
Mohamed El-Ashry, Chairman, Renewable Energy Network-21;
Tony Hayward, the Chief Executive Officer of BP;
Michael Liebreich, CEO of New Energy Finance;
Maud Olofsson, the Deputy Prime Minister of Sweden;
Wolfgang Paltz, EC Commissioner;
Tim Pawlenty, Governor of Minnesota
The following are WIREC 2008 Ministerial speakers confirmed to date:
Jose Achache, Director, Group on Earth Observations
Sarah Adams, CEO, Global Village Energy Partnership
Dan Arvizu, Director, National Renewable Energy Laboratory
Yusof Basiron, CEO, Malaysian Palm Oil Council
Sundar Bajgain, Head Biogas Programs, Bangladesh
Noam Ben-Ozer, Managing Director, Focal Energy
Amina Benkhadra, Minister, Moroccan Ministry of Energy, Mines, Water, and Environment
David Bohigian, Assistant Secretary, U.S. Department of Commerce
Marta Bonifert, Executive Director, Regional Environmental Center for Central and Eastern Europe
Gale Buchanan, Under Secretary Research, Education, and Economics, USDA
Kristjan Guy Burgess, Reykjavik Energy
Anil Cabraal, Energy, Specialist, World Bank
John Cavalier, CEO, CSFB
Corrado Clini, Chair, Global Bioenergy Partnership
Linda Conlin, Vice Chair and First Vice President, Export Import Bank
Patrick J. D'Addario, President, Fiorello H. LaGuardia Foundation
Silvio Crestana, President for Embrapa, Brazil
William Dar, Director General, International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics
Tom Delay, Chief Executive, UK Carbon Trust
Paula Dobriansky, Under Secretary for Democracy and Global Affairs, U.S. Department of State
Thomas Dorr, Chairman, Secretary's Energy Council and Undersecretary for Rural Development, USDA
Miles Drake, Senior Vice President, Research & Development, Weyerhaeuser Co.
Ana Estanqueiro, Chair International Energy Administration, Wind Executive Committee, INETI - Departamento de Energias Renováveis, Portugal
Douglas Faulkner, Deputy Undersecretary for Rural Development, USDA
Christopher Flavin, President, WorldWatch
Nancy Floyd, Founder and Managing Partner, Nth Power
Mark Fulton, Managing Director, Global Head of Strategic Planning and Climate Change, Deutche Bank
Sigmar Gabriel, Environment Minister of Germany
José Sergio Gabrielli de Azevedo, President and CEO, Petrobras
V.K. Garg, Chairman and Managing Director, Power Finance Corp
Steve Gatto, CEO, Chief Executive Officer, Bioenergy International
Prodipto Ghosh, Senior Advisor to Prime Minister of India and Distinguished Fellow, The Energy and Resources Institute
Arnold Goldman, Founder and CEO, Luz II
Hank Habicht, Vice Chairman of the Global Environment and Technology Foundation
David Hales, President, College of the Atlantic
Donna Harman, President and CEO, American Forest & Paper Association
Connie Hedegaard, Minister for Climate and Energy, Denmark
John Holdren, Teresa and John Heinz Professor of Environmental Policy, Harvard University
Marcos Jank, President and CEO, Brazilian Sugar Cane Industry Association
Kijune Kim, Chair, Asia Pacific Partnership for Clean Development and Climate, Renewable Energy Distributed Generation Task Force
Vinod Khosla, Founder and CEO, Khosla Ventures and Sun Microsystems
Jeff Leonard, President and CEO, Global Environment Fund
Nathan Lewis, George L. Argyros Professor of Chemistry, Cal Tech
Li Junfeng, Secretary General, Chinese Renewable Energy Industries Association
Joachim Luther, President, European Association of the Renewable Energy Research Centers
Katie McGinty, Secretary, State of Pennsylvania: Energy Independence Strategy
Claudia McMurray, Assistant Secretary of State for Oceans, Environment and Science, U.S. Department of State
Lew Milford, President, Clean Energy Group
Walter Kohn, Department of Physics, University of California, Santa Barbara, Santa Barbara, Nobel Laureate (Chemistry, 1998)
Mihir Kumar Mohanty, Mayor of Bhubaneswar, India
Javier Garcia Monge, Energy and CDM Investment, Investment and Development Division", Corfo, Chile
Kadri Nassiep, CEO, South African National Energy Research Institute
Raymond Orbach, Under Secretary, Office of Science, U.S. Department of Energy
Marianne Osterkorn, International Director, Renewable Energy and Energy Efficiency Partnership
George E. Pataki, Former Governor of New York, Founder and Chairman of Pataki-Cahill Group
Don Paul, Vice President, Special Projects, Chevron
Mauri Pekkarinen, Minister of the Economy, Finland
Andris Piebalgs, Commissioner for Energy European Commission
John Plaza, President and Founder, Imperium Renewables
Glenn Prickett, Senior Vice President, Conservation International
Mark Radka, Chief, UNEP Energy Branch
John Renieri, Vice President and General Manager, Bio-Based Materials - Energy & Specialties, DuPont
Mark Rey, Vice Chairman, Secretary's Energy Council and Under Secretary for Natural Resources and Environment, USDA
Jamal Saghir, Director for Energy, Transport, and Water, World Bank
Dieter Salomon, Lord Mayor, Freiburg, Germany
Marek Sawicki, Minister of Agriculture, Poland
Ed Schafer, Secretary of Agriculture, U.S. Department of Agriculture
Hermann Scheer,General Chairman of the World Council for Renewable Energy (WCRE); President of the International Parliamentary Forum on Renewable Energies; Member of the German Bundestag
Thorsteinn Sigfusson, Professor of Physics, University of Iceland, Iceland.
Ian Simm, Chief Executive, Impax Asset Management Ltd.
Mark Sinclair, Director, Clean Energy States Alliance
Hannes Smárason, Chairman, Geysir Green Energy
Buyelwa Sonjica, Minister, Ministry of Minerals and Energy, South Africa
S.V. Subramanian, Secretary to Government of India, RE Ministry
Paul Suding, Head of Secretariat, REN21
Jan-Eric Sundgren, Senior Vice President, Volvo
Nobuo Tanaka, Director General of International Energy Agency
Marcelo Tokman, Minister of Energy, Chile
Ibrahim Togola, Director, Mali-Folkecenter
Paul Tonko, President, NY State Energy Research and Development Authority
Christine Wörlen, Deutsche Energie-Agentur GmbH (dena) - German Energy Agency