Thomson Reuters Foundation held the conference "Clean Energy: Opportunities and Challenges for Brazil" in Rio de Janeiro on June 1, 2012.
The event was a lead-up to the United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development (Rio+20) to be held in late June.
The Thomson Reuters Foundation conference explored the steps Brazil should take to maintain its leading position in clean energy in the face of rising energy demand and the discovery of substantial offshore oil deposits.
The panelists discussed the steps Brazil should follow to build on its leading position in clean energy, including expanding the exploration of renewable sources, investing in new technologies, finding ways to supply new demand and reducing to a minimum the social and environmental impacts of the energy business.
The conference was held at COPPE, one of the most prestigious research institutes for technology and the environment in Latin America.
Among the panelists there were two representatives from the government (Antonio Tovar from BNDES, Brazil's National Development Bank, and Ana Dolabella, from the Ministry of Environment), two academics (Virgínia Parente, professor at São Paulo State University, Nivalde de Castro, coordinator of the Research Group for the Electric Sector at Rio de Janeiro Federal University), two business people (Paulo Pedrosa, president of Brazil's Large Energy Consumers Association, and Everaldo Feitosa, president of Eólica windpower company), one environment activist (Carlos Rittl from WWF-Brasil) and one top authority in environment, formerly a key actor in the government (Luiz Pinguelli Rosa, director of COPPE and secretary of the Climate Change Forum).
The conference was divided in two panels. The first one was entitled Clean energy: competitiveness and opportunities to grow in Brazil, with a more entrepreneur approach, discussing the opportunities related to the clean energy business and the government's policies to strengthen them.
The second panel was entitled Clean energy and social and environmental impacts of the energy business in Brazil, discussing social and environmental impacts of the country's energy matrix, including the risks that enterprises like the Belo Monte plant in the Amazon bring to communities. It also looked at ways clean energy could help citizens overcome poverty.
Between the panels, the Foundation's event had Marina Silva as keynote speaker. A former senator, former Environtment Minister and former Presidential candidate, Mrs. Silva is one of Brazil's leading voices in environmental issues.
Audience
Over 160 people watched the event at COPPE, plus hundreds of others that followed it on a live streaming broadcast at UOL, one of Brazil's largest news websites.
Most of the audience present at the venue was made of professors, academics and students from COPPE and Rio de Janeiro Federal University, where COPPE is located.
Some of the energy business' top players in Brazil sent representatives to the Thomson Reuters Foundation conference, like Petrobras (Brazil's state oil company), Eletrobras (Brazil's state energy company), Camargo Correa (one of Brazil's top builders, which also operates in the clean energy business) and Energisa (one of Brazil's largest energy distributors).
The conference was also attended by important media outlets, like top-selling weekly magazine Veja, newspapers Folha and Estadão, state news agency Agência Brasil and UOL, which had a full online video crew at the venue not only working on the live broadcast, but also interviewing the panelists and informing about Foundation's goals and activities.
After her speech, Mrs. Silva gave a 30-minute press conference, in which she criticized Brazil's Forest Code, recently voted by the Congress, and urged Rio+20 to have a more decisive, relevant role.
Mrs. Silva remarks at the Foundation's conference made the headlines in some of Brazil's most important online media outlets. Agencia Brasil's story about it, for example, was republished by over 30 Brazilian news websites.
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