The World Energy Council (WEC) is set to host its inaugural World Energy Leaders’ Dialogue on January 21 in Abu Dhabi, aiming to create a more regionally-focused platform for energy discussions. The dialogue will include sessions addressing the energy trilemma and resilience in energy infrastructure, along with the impact of unconventional energy sources on the Middle East's landscape. The WEC's achievements in 2013 included a strengthened network, enhanced content on energy sustainability, and a growing influence in global energy discussions.

1. WEC Inside
15–31 January 2014
HAPPY NEW YEAR!
Welcome to WEC Inside, your exclusive
briefing from your WEC network
News
World Energy Leaders’ Dialogue to start in Abu Dhabi
Abu Dhabi: city for the first World Energy Leaders’
Dialogue
The WEC will be holding its inaugural World Energy Leaders’ Dialogue this month (21 January) in
Abu Dhabi, the UAE. The event will be co-hosted
by H. E. Suhail Al Mazrouei, the UAE Minister of
Energy, and Marie-José Nadeau, WEC Chair.
The WEC expects that its Dialogue events will
provide a more frequent, regionally focused platform than its more established twice-yearly World
Energy Leaders’ Summits.
The event will continue to be held in a
roundtable setting, where participants can address
critical issues in an interactive and informal peer-topeer dialogue. Session summaries will not contain
attributed quotes unless with the explicit agreement
of the contributor to encourage an open exchange.
The Abu Dhabi Dialogue will have three sessions centred on the theme, “balancing the
trilemma and rethinking resilience”.
It will open with welcoming addresses from the
co-hosts, followed by a trilemma ministerial dialogue which will focus on the challenges to balance
the trilemma and sharing some key success stories
from around the world.
The second session will explore how energy
infrastructures can become more resilient to risks.
These risks, such as unpredictable weather patterns, growing challenges of the energy–water
nexus, security and geopolitical risks, the increasingly active role of public opinion, and cyber
threats, have become the “new normal” in the
energy sector. The session, building on the discussion at the 22nd World Energy Congress, will
look at these challenges in the context of the
energy trilemma, with a special focus on the Middle East and the impact on policies.
The third session will cover unconventionals
and their impact on the Middle East’s energy landscape. It will look whether the shale gas revolution
has undermined the business case for renewables, and how Middle East gas producers can stay
competitive to avoid losing out to the rise in unconventionals.
About 60 high-level participants from more
than 20 countries in six world regions are conNews continued on page 2 ...
Interview
2013 was a phenomenal year for the World Energy Council.
Christoph Frei gives his take on the WEC’s achievements and
looks ahead into this year.
Christoph Frei is
Secretary General of
the World Energy
Council.
.
What would you consider to be the
WEC’s achievements in 2013?
I think we should measure our success in three
areas: network, content, and impact.
Our network is getting stronger. Strong events
in India, China, and the huge success with our
Congress are very solid proofs of the increasing
strength of our network. We also have new member committees in Iraq and Bahrain, three new
Global Partners, and renewed all existing Global
Partners and Patrons.
Our content is stronger than ever. In our
Trilemma work we have gone from using weighting
to scoring countries on their energy sustainability
performance. Governments love rankings, while
the finance industry is more used to ratings – we
have to cater for both. For the first time we had a
Trilemma Summit where ministers talked about the
trilemma at the Congress, and we had exposure at
COP. The trilemma has resonated stronger than
ever. The same for our Scenarios study. All our
flagships have grown this year.
We have brought our content to our network
and regions – this shows our impact. We have
1
created vocabulary that was picked up and used
by a great number of energy leaders – our vocabulary of the trilemma, and our Jazz and Symphony
language for scenarios.
In terms of being a thought-leader in energy,
WEC has had a very good year. We have certainly
strengthened our position, and I’d like to pay tribute to our former Chair, Pierre Gadonneix, for his
leadership.
What are some examples of our work
being noticed and adopted?
There have been numerous anecdotes at the
Congress and elsewhere. At the Congress, the
President of Korea referred to the trilemma repeatedly in her speech; Saudi Aramco CEO Kalih AlFalih referred to our Scenarios study in his opening
keynote speech; the CEO of ENEL, Fulvio Conti,
made his whole speech around Jazz and Symphony. We also had a Trilemma summit attended by
48 of the 50 ministers at the Congress, and a CEO
roundtable with about 50 CEOs discussing our
Global Electricity Initiative.
Outside the Congress there were many such
moments as well. For example, recently I had the
privilege to be invited by a small group of senior
policy and business leaders around the German
environment minister Peter Altmaier to meet and
discuss the Energiewende. The WEC is increasingly being asked for an opinion by other organisations, with our reports being well received and I
know that our member committees are actively
engaged in supporting governments and industry in
guiding energy strategies.
What does 2014 have in store for our
member network?
In every place that we are to hold an event this year
– Abu Dhabi, Johannesburg, Astana, Cartagena,
and FOREN in Romania – we are dealing with the
question: how can we re-orient our government
policies, make them more robust, sustainable, and
Interview continued on page 4 ...
15–31 January 2014 WEC Inside