Distinguished guests, ladies and gentlemen,

I’m most glad to this Energy-Finance Forum and to share some of my thoughts with you.

I believe this forum is addressing one of the most important issues of our time.  Energy is something that is not only required in every country’s economic development, it belongs to all human beings, and its use or misuse can affect the future of human civilization. It affects every aspect of our existence - such as air-conditioning,   cooking, transportation, construction and industry. In fact, human society would quickly ground to a hold without it.

With globalization, energy also irrevocably linked to economy and finance. The development of economy and finance need to be supported by continual energy supply. However, energy is a finite resource. Therefore, some experts have said that =the next 20 years will be completely different from the last 20. We would need great wisdom to survive this big challenge. This forum is just the right platform to wisdom to come to the fore.

The energy we use today is mostly fossil fuel and a comparatively small amount of renewable energy.  There is   not much cheap and easy-exploited fossil fuel left. Most of the rest requires a huge amount of investment in human, financial, material, even energy, resources, to exploit. In the foreseeable future, renewable energy simply cannot fill in  the gap that fossil fuel left. It takes a long time to develop base-loaded energy, such as nuclear and hydro power. It is clear that renewable energy would not be able to meet our immediate energy need, which grows exponentially.

It’s also worth pointing out that while fossil fuel energy is limited, economic growth is unlimited. The current dollar standard is based on credit relationships. Central banks, commercial banks and other financial institutions enlarge the money circulation through loaning. Money is loaned into existence. Because of interest, when you need to return the money, you’ll find there’s not enough money. Therefore, new money must be loaned into existence to cover the interest payments. Perpetual growth is a requirement of modern banking. The banking system must continually expand, because that is how it was designed to be.

While increasing money supply, our goods and energy become less and less, ultimately, it will lead to hyper inflation.

Thus, how to insure the economic development under such circumstances is an urgent priority. Chinese historians always say that:” By studying the history, we can foresee the future.” But if we want to know the next 20 years, we can’t just look back at the past 20 years. The world changes too fast this time, there’re too many unseen challenges in the future. So we can only rely on the human wisdom to solve the conundrums caused by energy and economic growth. There are three possible solutions:

First, it is the leapfrog breakthroughs of technology. At the current level of technology, it takes another 50 to 100 years that renewable energy can replace fossil fuel. We can only hope the rapid development of technology can reduce this time frame.

Second, what we can do is to save energy from now on.  At the current rate we are using energy, we will be forced to change our lifestyle one day because of energy depletion. So why not change our lifestyle now, especially the American lifestyle?

The US has 5% of world’s population, but consumes 20% of world’s total energy. And the American owns 25% of the world’s cars. If everybody (6 billion people) lives an American lifestyle, it will require FOUR Earths (400%) to sustain our lives. So from this minute, change your lifestyle and shake off the oil addiction. Should we still aspire to own big cars and big houses, or just live a modest lifestyle

Lastly, let’s come back to our core question. While energy affects all human beings, our financial system varies from country to  country.. But in this globalized world, the US dollar standard has severely affected all countries’ financial system. Does it mean that we need to create a new financial world order by our human wisdom?

Human wisdom shapes our future. I hope in today’s forum, we can see it providing some shining path for us to treat.

Thank you!