Breakfast Seminar - Outlook 2017: Opportunities in a changing world
On Thursday 2nd of March the French Norwegian Chamber of Commerce (CCFN) and BNP Paribas organized in Oslo a breakfast seminar on the outlook of 2017. The speakers shared the views of their companies on the world economy and what is at stake in the current challenging environment. The main topics covered were political and financial instability in the main areas (US, China, Europe), the energy markets as well as the opportunities for business diversification.
The first speaker was Sylviane Delcuve, senior economist at BNP Paribas. After presenting a historical analysis of European, American and Japanese interest rates, and defining the key questions raised for the year 2017, she exposed the unexpected economic situations in the United States and Britain following the election of Donald Trump and the Brexit. She also displayed the slackening Chinese and Norwegian economic environments before portraying in her conclusion the possible future outcomes for the United States and Europe.
Her presentation was followed by Zita Marko Daatland, head of macro and energy market analysis at Statoil, presenting her company’s long-term energy perspectives (to 2040). “The main challenge is, by 2030, to allow everyone to have affordable and clean energy”, she said.
She based her presentation on 3 different potential scenarios: reform, an outcome where there are energy efficiency improvements and economic restructuring, rivalry, i.e. more emissions as no country curtails its carbon emissions in a world lacking coordinated policies, and renewal, i.e. countries start exploiting renewable energies consistent with the target to limit global warming to 2°Celsius. (For further information on the subject, click here).
She acknowledged the difficulty of forecasting development in global energy market. Notwithstanding this, one thing is certain: nowadays an energy company cannot focus only on one type of energy. Developing only clean energies or only oil and gas is inconceivable, it has to do both.
Finally, Dagfinn Ringås detailed Schneider Electric’s plan for Green Growth in Norway. By 2020, it is forecasted that energy consumption will growth by 50%, a considerable challenge as CO2 emissions need to be halved by 2. He highlighted that Schneider Electric has many domains to curb those emissions – smart homes, smart cities, infrastructures, electric vehicles, shipping industry etc.
The tool selected by his company to achieve this objective is digitalisation: iot, connected devices and smart meters will enable to have a real-time control over the energy consumption, allowing a better data analysis via different apps, leading to a more efficient energy consumption.
Some experimentation was already undergone in Drammen, where the schools and sport park was supervised with Schneider Electric’s technology, allowing a significant drop in energy consumption. The potential is huge and the current challenges are to focus on the right domains.
The CCFN would like to thank all the participants and partners for this successful event.
Follow our activities and coming events on our website www.ccfn.no.
