Chair of the Carbon Trust, James Smith, welcomed guests to the first of a new series of breakfasts on The Business of Carbon hosted at the Carbon Trust's London offices which took place on Tuesday 12 June 2012. On the agenda was an engaging high-level discussion of low carbon energy choices.
The breakfast was attended by a select group of senior representatives from government, FTSE 100 companies, investors in the low carbon economy, and NGOs. After James Smith set out his own position, echoing his recent article in the Huffington Post on the same subject, a lively debate was opened to the floor.
The ensuing discussion was chaired by the Carbon Trust's Director of Innovation and Policy, James Wilde. Opinions bounced back and forth on technology choices, launch aid, time scales, political will, public opinion, and even actively incentivising energy efficiency as an alternative to investing in innovation. The one point that kept coming up again and again was the need to look not only at the intricacies of energy supply, but also demand, when considering policy decisions.