Programma delle attività EUROSOLAR

Dear friends

We at EUROSOLAR Bonn and I wish you all the very best - and please accept my personal THANK YOU for your work, and, spoken personally, for being able to work with you.

We have a lot to do this year, our 30th. I hope you will participate on our fantastic annversary program, in Bonn and in Berlin.

Most salient today is the historical recognition that ubiquitous renewable energy for all and the complete displacement of all fossil and nuclear energy sources are a necessary precondition for world peace.

We can be optimistic in 2018: entire industries are in transformation this year.

Take the automobile sector: without its umbilical cord to fossil fuels there are only counterincentives to continuing to rely on the combustion engine, the switch can and will happen very quickly.

Also, we do not need a carbon tax - quite to the contrary; it slows us down, as history has shown. Let's remove fossil and nuclear subsidies instead.

And the agricultural and forestry sectors have slowly begun to recognise the need to improve their emissons profile: CO2 negative (adsorbing) agricultural practice also improves the quality of food and soils - and the harvesting and burning of woodchips and pellets is increasingly and correctly seen as 'non-renewable' - our forests should be used not for GHG emitting firewood processing, but for carbon sequestration, biodiversity enhancement - and wood based building materials.

Finally, and critically for the evolution of our work: your continued and growing presence across Europe will be most important for our success towards 2020 and 2030.

My best wishes for a healthy, peaceful, prosperous and renewable 2018.