Ideas concerning the future of renewable Energies are numerous. EREC delivers two studies on this issue, through a proposal for a UE renewable energy strategy for 2050 (A 100% Renewable Energy Vision for the European Union) and a study co-realised with Greenpeace (Energy Revolution).

RE-thinking 2050

Energy (R)evolution

The next IMAGINE event to be organised will be the start of the Figueres IMAGINE local process.

Through the IMAGINE initiative, the city of Figueres decided to gather local stakeholders with the help of DeMontfort University and Energy Cities in order to engage in a reflection on the energy future of the Figueres Region.

The launch event will take place in the Catalonian Dali City on June 10th and 11th.

www.figueres.cat/

in English:

and in French:



Enjoy your reading and if you want to share your own documents in our Imagine group, do not hesitate to join!

• Minutes
• Presentation by Sabine Froning (EUroheat and power)
• Presentation by Jean-Luc Daubaire (City of Rennes)
• Presentation by Richard Elelman (City of Figueres)
• Presentation by Gérard Magnin (Energie-Cités)

• Minutes
• Presentation by Sabine Froning (Euroheat and power)
• Presentation by Gerard Magnin (Energie-Cités)

First IMAGINE thematic meeting taking place in Brussels tomorrow!

District heating represents an efficient energy solutions for satisfying urban heat. Though, is this solution suitable everywhere? Which primary energy sources does it involve? Does it make room for renewables? And is district heating relevant in low energy districts, when heating needs are low? Under which conditions is district heating acceptable for social housing?



This issues will be cross-analysed by experts and discussed with the participants.

Main speakers are:

• Sabine Froning (Euroheat and Power) [confirmed]
• Josche Muth (EREC) [confirmed]
• Thomas Bouquet (Cogen Europe) [confirmed]
• Claire Roumet (Cecodhas) [confirmed]

Also, one session will address the outputs of the IMAGINE seminar (Memorandum of understanding, Action plan...) held in last November in Arc-et-Senans (FR).

Venue:
February 2nd, 2010
09:00 – 12:00
House of Cities - Square de Meeûs 1 (Room Luxembourg) | B-1000 Brussels

Contact: Stéphane Dupas

http://www.flickr.com/photos/energie-cites/sets/72157623150796904/

The Green and connected cities organised by ACIDD in Strasbourg is a first response to an observation.

"Information and communication technologies play a decisive role in the future of our societies and sustainable development of our territories, especially in large towns. They can and must be the levers for a human development and a democratic renewal, for an economy which takes all its social and environmental responsibilities and develops by reinventing its models for wealth creation."

As a result, this forum gathered around 150 participants and took place under the form of a series of small forum organised in the buildings of the European Parliament.

More information and coming proceeding on the Forum's webiste.

ACIDD participates in the IMAGINE network through its president, Gilles Berhault.

In Rennes, an open forum was organised by the municipality as part of the discussion around the local climate change plan.

Around 100 persons representing a high diversity of local stakeholders participated in the event, which followed the principles of the Open Space Conference:

• Whoever shows up is the right group
• Whatever happens is the only thing that could have
• Whenever it starts is the right time
• When it's over, it's over.

During the opening session, participants could propose sessions and workshops and put them in one of the available time slots.

This event was labelled IMAGINE event and will soon be the subject of a reporting post on the blog.

This year's economy Nobel Prize was awarded to two American academics who have pioneered research into how individuals co-operate and share common resources, and work together within companies, Elinor Ostrom, professor of political science at Indiana University, and Oliver Williamson, professor emeritus at the Haas School of Business.

Not only is Ostrom the first woman to be awarded this prize, but she also represent a school of thought that is not used to such honours.

An article of the Guardians explains that in her classic work Governing the Commons: The Evolution of Institutions for Collective Action, Ostrom shows that under certain conditions, when communities are given the right to self-organise they can democratically govern themselves to preserve the environment.

The Guardian's article also shows that the work of Ostrom is very important in terms of environmental governance, which is one of the driving line of the IMAGINE initiative.

"In a nutshell, Ostrom won the Nobel prize for showing that privatising natural resources is not the route to halting environmental degradation.

In most economics classes the environment is usually taught as being the victim of the "tragedy of the commons". If one assumes, like many economists do, that individuals are ruthlessly selfish individuals, and you put those individuals onto a commonly owned resource, the resource will eventually be destroyed. The solution: privatise the commons. Everyone will have ownership of small parcels and treat that parcel better than when they shared it.

Many environmental experts also reject the tragedy of the commons argument and say the government should step in.

Ostrom says the government may not be the best allocator of public resources either. Often governments are seen as illegitimate, or their rules cannot be enforced. Indeed, Ostrom's life work looking at forests, lakes, groundwater basins and fisheries shows that the commons can be an opportunity for communities themselves to manage a resource."

We are still hesitating...
Visit our profile on both platforms and tell us which one you prefer!



Visit Energie-Cités' profile on Calaméo


IMAGINE Seminar 2009 - Session1, Gérard Magnin


Visit Energie-Cités' profile on Scribd

Muriel Garrigues (ACIDD) has started to upload the videos on Dailymotion. You can already listen to Gérard Magnin and Camille Bierens de Haan. The other videos can be viewed here.





Go to ACIDD account on Dailymotion

We are happy to inform you that we will have the possibility to view "The Age of stupid" during our Imagine foresight seminar, next week in Arc-et-Senans.

The screening will take place after dinner, at 21.30 on Wednesday 18th.

Synopsis
"The Age of Stupid' is the new cinema documentary from the Director of 'McLibel' and the Producer of the Oscar-winning 'One Day in September. This enormously ambitious drama-documentary-animation hybrid stars Oscar-nominated Pete Postlethwaite as an old man living in the devastated world of 2055, watching 'archive' footage from 2008 and asking: why didn't we stop climate change while we had the chance?"

The Age of Stupid Global Premiere Trailer from Age of Stupid on Vimeo.

More info about the film on http://www.ageofstupid.net/

The French departement Côtes D'Armor in Bretagne led a large scale territorial foresight experience. This initiative has involved around 10.000 citizens from elected bodies, economical actors, administrations or residents, through conferences, workshops or surveys between 2007 and 2009.

The results are to be seen on a well documented website, including reports, videos, graphics.

Côtes d'Armor 2mille20 (French).

On October 8th, a luncheon organised by Energie-Cites took place in Brussels to launch the discussions around the IMAGINE memorandum of understanding as base for the IMAGINE think-tank. Participants in the think-tank gathered and exchanged views in order to prepare the basis of the next IMAGINE seminar, in November.

Read more

The 4th edition of our annual foresight seminar will take place in the Royal Saltwork of Arc-et-Senans, next 17-19 November 2009.
Download the programme in English or French

During this seminar, a memorandum will be commented and adopted by participants, to set up the basis of the new IMAGINE think-tank. Download the present version of the memorandum in English or French

Foundations of the IMAGINE initiative are explained in the IMAGINE concept paper, in English or French

The Veolia Observatory is a tool developed in order to understand changes and think of the future use of cities by their inhabitants.

Mainly based on focused publications and surveys, the observatory offers a good overview of life in the city and on how citizens see their life in it.

According to Veolia, the results of Veolia Observatory 2008 survey make it possible to sketch the portrait of the average city dweller.Apart from the differences revealed by this approach,the analysis of lifestyles brings into sharp contrast the differences in how people actually live.

Veolia Observatory of Urban Lifestyles

German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) launched on July 2009 a new funding activity to help regions imagining new ways to adapt to climate change and its consequences on everyday life and economy.



KLIMZUG is presented as an initiative for "the implementation of climate adaptation to be achieved through regional networks between science, companies, administration and public agencies. KLIMZUG wants to pool the strengths of the stakeholders by these cooperative networks and to integrate anticipated changes in processes of regional planning and development. This is to contribute to a timely climate adaptation of long-term sustainability and to strengthening the German economy."

KLIMZUG is already getting developped in 7 regional projects in Germany.

Learn more on the KLIMZUG website

Although there is a fairly strong consensus amongst the players when remote time horizons are involved (cf. ‘’factor 4’’ – F4 - by 2050), said consensus tends to weaken when shorter horizons supposedly geared to implementing factor 4, like the “3x20” in 2020, are considered and is virtually non-existent when it comes to establishing next year’s budget (the energy-climate tax for 2010 is a good example of this). In fact, such overlapping time frames raise a number of issues and lead to confusion.

Read more

The initiative to organize a local “Imagine” event was taken on 3 September 2009 by the city of Bielsko Biala within the framework of the EuroBeskid region, which involves Poland, the Czech Republic and Slovakia. The event gathered around 50 persons.

The city of Bielsko-Biala is going ahead in various ways. A comprehensive policy and an appropriate staffing, as well as political commitment gives the city a stronger reputation in Poland as an advanced city within energy issues. This event is to be seen within the growing importance of Energy and Territory issues and the concerns of other polish local authorities actors like PNEC (Association of Municipalities Polish Network 'Energie-Cités) and ZMP (Association of Polish Cities), which are putting energy issues in the agenda.

This success shows that there are opportunities to organize IMAGINE events at the local event, involving local actors inspired by the results of the IMAGINE think-tank, and in turn inspiring the global IMAGINE discussions.