Younghoon David Kim

 

 

 

The Manila World Energy Leaders’ Summit, WELS, was a resounding success – it brought together energy leaders in an informal context to discuss critical issues and to connect the dots in a time of unprecendented uncertainty in the global energy sector.

 

Christoph Frei, Secretary General, World Energy Council, said: “Over the two days, the WELS Summit proved to be an invaluable opportunity to share different views on current challenges in the energy world, and confront views in order to tackle issues in a regionally integrated manner.”

 

Discussions reconfirmed that regional integration is of critical importance to Asia, with trust clearly at the heart of the discussions. Another topic was the design of urban centres to counter pressure from transport and demography where it was agreed that the issue is largely a question of financing infrastructure, with cities key to generating demand.

 

Christoph Frei went on to say: “Regional LNG markets face incredible changes from new markets and financing resilient energy infrastructure from extreme weather events keeps private sector and policy leaders awake at night.

 

“It is clear that working together on these momentous issues contributes to overcoming the energy policy Trilemma, and we will continue to make these issues a focus of our further-going Scenarios, Trilemma and Resources studies.”

 

The Summit, which took place at the Asia Clean Energy Forum, was co-hosted by the Asian Development Bank at their Headquarters in Manila, was attended by more than 50 delegates from over 30 countries, included six government ministers and senior officials in attendance from Hong Kong, Indonesia, Nepal, the Philippines and China. The World Energy Council was once again please to be a co-organiser of the Asia Clean Energy Forum, which was addressed by our Co-Chair, Younghoon David Kim, our Secretary General, Christoph Frei and fellow World Energy Council leaders and members.