#rp22 Speaker Claudia Kemfert: Renewable Energies for Peace

Professor Claudia Kemfert is Germany's most renowned scientist for energy and climate economics. A multi-award-winning top researcher and professor at Leuphana University Lüneburg, she has been Head of the Energy, Transportation and Environment Department at DIW Berlin since 2004. 

She has been assessing the economic costs of climate change and climate protection since the 90s, warned early on of the great dependence on fossil energies and stressed that the costs of preventive climate protection are considerably lower than the potential economic damage caused by climate change.
In her current book "Mondays for Future", Claudia Kemfert presents concrete solutions and recommendations on how and where entrepreneurs, politicians and citizens can implement change.

A few days after the Russian invasion of Ukraine began, the former visiting professor at the universities of Saint Petersburg and Moscow drew attention to the fact that an energy transition can also have peace-building effects. She discusses this topic in her current podcast and will bring it to the stage of #rp22.

You can follow Claudia Kemfert on Twitter or LinkedIn. For her latest publications, articles and videos, please visit her website.

3 Questions for... Claudia Kemfert

We have asked Claudia Kemfert three questions in preparation for her appearance at re:publica 22.

What topic will you be talking about at #rp22?
The Wind blows anyway: Renewable energies as energies of peace and freedom. The political, social and economic opportunities of the energy transition  

What have you missed out on in the past two years and think is in urgent need of a reboot? 
After the pandemic is before the pandemic. After the pandemic is before climate change. There will be no "return" to the "old normal", we are in the midst of the new normal. This requires change, transformation and adaptation. This in turn causes fear, stress and rejection. We need to recognise the impact we humans have on the planet and the responsibility and power we have to slow down and stop the climate crisis, pandemic and energy crisis. We must not freeze in fear and fatalism, but practice, stay fit and flexible and help each other not only to withstand change, but to live in and with it in an agile way. We need to learn from jellyfish, the oldest living creature on the planet, which thrives forever and has incredible resilience. They seem to just drift, but can regenerate at any time and swim against the current. I wish for more "jellyfish", less restarts, more resilience and serenity. 

The motto of #rp22 refers to the last line of the Queen song "Bohemian Rhapsody". Which song do you think should definitely be included in a karaoke session at #rp22 and why? Michael Jackson: „Heal the World“ and „We are the World“ as well as Taylor Swift: „Only the Young“.