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Chadian-Sudanese tensions halting regional peace efforts, says Ban
Continuing tensions between Chad and Sudan have stalled regional peace efforts, prolonging the humanitarian crisis in both nations, Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said in a new report made public today.
Arab countries meet at UN-backed forum to save jobs in economic crisis
High-level delegates from 22 countries are taking part in a United Nations-backed three-day Arab Employment Forum in Beirut to consider ways of sustaining jobs and extending social protection in the face of the global economic crisis.
Top UN humanitarian official to attend African refugee summit in Uganda
The top United Nations humanitarian official is leaving for Uganda today on a five-day visit during which he will attend an African Union (AU) summit on refugees and internally displaced persons (IDPs) and tour areas of the country where nearly 2 million people have been driven from their homes by decades of fighting with rebels.
Last African gathering before Copenhagen climate summit kicks off
Negotiators and experts from Africa, the continent most vulnerable to global warming, have converged in Ethiopia for their last United Nations-backed meeting before December’s summit in Copenhagen, Denmark, where nations are set to conclude negotiations on a new climate change agreement.
For a life without tobacco; for an EU full of tobacco producers
This is a theme we’ve looked at in the past, but just to remind readers of the absurdity of the situation we shall return to it. The European Commission has just launched “a new and innovative animated web series called Helpisodes” as part of its â¬72 million ‘HELP - For a life without tobacco‘ campaign.
The Commission’s press release explains that, “A total of 12 Helpisodes have been created. Each episode is one and half minutes long with the exception of the `pilot’ which introduces the main characters (Helpers) and how they came to be together and were transformed into anti- smoking super heroes…The aim of these absurd and, above all, humorous Helpisodes is to communicate with young people in a language they understand and appreciate”.
This is all a bit weird and over-the-top - like so many other Commission initiatives aimed at the younger generation (see the previous post for another example). But we’re in no position to pass judgement on whether or not it works (it’s no doubt a worthy cause). But is this really a job for the European Commission?
Remember, this is the same institution that - with the help of the farming lobby, the European Parliament and several member states - spent â¬293 million in 2008 to subsidise tobacco producers in the EU.
In other words: the European Commission spends â¬365 million on various tobacco programmes. â¬72 million of this sum is aimed at fighting tobacco while â¬293 million of it goes to promoting tobacco. To add to the mix, the EU has introduced tough regulations on cigarette advertising, including the âsmoking killsâ warning labels on cigarette packets. And in the latest twist, the Commission is now calling for an EU-wide ban on smoking in public places by 2012.
No wonder people are confused as to what the EU is all about…
UN-African Union operation in Darfur voices concern over build-up of troops, rebels
The joint United Nations-African Union peacekeeping mission in Darfur (UNAMID) today voiced grave concern over a significant surge in the number of Government and rebel troops in the war-ravaged western region of Sudan.
Painful
This clip is so painful (and funded by taxpayers): European Commissioner Viviane Reding rapping away in an attempt to encourage people to make more use of various IT inventions. The target group is not entirely clear, but it’s not hard to guess.
Further comments are superfluous.
Hat tip: HAX
Going Clean
By MARA LEMOS STEIN
It’s well known as a major investor in wind- and solar-energy projects. But General Electric Co. also hopes its growing role as a venture capitalist will give it an edge in a broader spectrum of emerging green technologies.
The Journal Report
See the complete Energy report.
Since its first investment, in lithium-ion battery maker A123Systems Inc. in January 2006, the venture-capital group at GE Energy Financial Services has put $160 million into a portfolio of 20 companies focused on renewable energy, power-grid and energy-efficiency improvements, and, to a lesser extent, advanced oil and gas technologies.
GE sees these later-stage, clean-energy start-ups as a way to get a sneak peek at emerging technologies. Through its venture arm, it also gets a piece of the ones it believes will be ahead of the pack in the global shift to a reduced-carbon economy.
Kevin Skillern, the VC group’s managing director, says it’s too early “to tell if we’ve turned one dollar into two or three dollars.” But at GE, there’s another key metric: technology. Mr. Skillern says GE is also interested in how the portfolio companies can help its businesses.
“This is a vehicle that provides our larger company with a window into what could be a $15 billion to $20 billion industry in emerging energy technologies,” he says.
Mr. Skillern, who grew up in Houston and worked for more than a decade in the oil industry, got his M.B.A. at Stanford University in Palo Alto, Calif. He went back to the oil patch after he graduated, at a time when many of his classmates were pursuing Internet start-ups. But the seed of venture investing had been planted, and GE Energy Financial Services’ venture capital was the perfect new patch to let it grow.
We met with Mr. Skillern at GE Energy Financial Services’ offices in Stamford, Conn., to discuss how the large conglomerate is influencing the clean- technology industry through its venture investing. Excerpts from that conversation follow.
Seeking Relationships
THE WALL STREET JOURNAL: Were there any particular challenges for GE to get into clean-technology venture-capital investing?
Julian Puckett
Kevin Skillern of GE Energy Financial
KEVIN SKILLERN: We’ve had to upgrade the relationships with the major investment firms. In this type of investing, we’re doing it as a group of investors, as a syndicate, so relationships are paramount. Only about 5% to 10% of the investments make the vast bulk of the profits, ultimately, so clearly you want to be having relationships with the best investors, the best firms.
When we started this endeavor, we were not well known as an investor in this domain, and the big companies are not always perceived positively by other financial investors. There’s a lot of suspicion and concern, and we certainly didn’t have a reputation of being a world-class partner. Another aspect to that is, as one investor at a top-three firm told me, “Aren’t you the ones we’re trying to beat? Aren’t we trying to disrupt GE?”
There’s been a change in philosophy toward GE and other large companies from the investment community, as well as the companies, as they realize the challenges of scaling up these businesses into very large, challenging markets. And I don’t think it’s just the market environment that has been the catalyst for this change.
WSJ: What is your investment selection process?
MR. SKILLERN: We see probably 1,000 to 1,500 business plans a year, and the selection process is similar to other financial investors. There are three simple factors that are the drivers of valuation: Is the market large and compelling? Is the technology transformational? And are there an adequate number of A-players in the management team that will build an enduring business?
The extra factors that matter for GE have to do more with the scope [of the technology] and how strong a fit it is with different aspects of GE. Ideally we’d love to see both a technical collaboration opportunity, where there is some value to be added beyond the capital, as well as a commercial collaboration opportunity in markets that matter to us.
Adding Value
WSJ: What value is added by GE?
MR. SKILLERN: There’s a commercial value that we add, of trying to sell their products to GE and to GE customers. There’s getting access to senior decision-makers. There are joint going-to-market programs.
On a technical basis, we have what’s considered one of the world’s leading corporate research centers that really is our secret weapon in valuation of companies. Then, on the expertise side, these companies are scaling up, looking for project finance, looking for how to fund themselves, to access government grants. So we’re pretty smart advisers on some areas where conventional investors wouldn’t have that kind of expertise.
As an example, there’s a company in California called Soliant Energy. They’re an emerging leader in rooftop concentrated photovoltaic systems. When you put the system together, you have to solder, and whiskers [stringy threads resulting from the heat] come up. That causes a problem, because too many of them could lead the unit to short circuit. We were able to go to our appliances business that has the exact same issue, but had already studied it. So we saved [Soliant] months of work and thousands of dollars to provide a quick insight because we are connected within our company.
WSJ: With GE being such a vast company, it’s hard to imagine that there aren’t silos that prevent the collaboration you talk about with the portfolio companies.
MR. SKILLERN: GE is a very progressive company and very thoughtful about what’s going on in the world. If there’s a better mousetrap, we want to know about it, and we want to work with the people who have the better mousetrap.
People are interested in trying to be involved and seeing what’s happening at the leading edge of these areas. What that enthusiasm has enabled, is that through our vehicle, we fostered relationships with what we call the top 100 emerging technologies stakeholders across GE in all these different areas that matterâfrom carbon capture, to biomass, to wind and solar, even biofuels and water.
Battery Bet
WSJ: One of your group’s major investments has been in the lithium-ion battery maker A123Systemsâa $70 million investment. Is that a bet in the electrification of transportation?
MR. SKILLERN: Our view is that this electrification trend is obviously a significant and enduring one.
Ultimately, the question for the electric vehicle is whether or not the capacity that’s being installed and the technology development make the cost come down in a way that gets to that price point that allows very deep penetration. The magic number in the U.S. market: If it would end up with a price premium over conventional vehicles of $5,000 to $6,000 for the batteries, the uptake on that type of price premium, we think, would be very high. And our collective view has been that the likelihood of that panning out in the U.S. market is pretty high.
WSJ: How do you view the rise in government policies to regulate carbon emissions?
MR. SKILLERN: It is a driver of the macro opportunity but in very specific instances; it’s almost never the individual driver of any of these technologies today. I’d predict that over the next several years you’ll see more opportunities that are driven specifically by the carbon policy.
We’re starting to see some compelling technology in this area. You have companies that are developing alternative carbon-capture approaches, you have companies that are developing infrastructure that’s designed to help move carbon dioxide around the world, you have companies that are developing services to account for carbon footprint.
It’s not something that our group has made an investment in to this point, but I’d be surprised if we didn’t make an investment or several investments in this area over the next 12 to 24 months. âMs. Lemos Stein is a reporter for Dow Jones Clean Technology Insight in New York. She can be reached at mara.lemos-stein@dowjones.com
‘North Pole will become open sea’
The North Pole will turn into an open sea during summer within a decade, according to data released Wednesday by a team of explorers who trekked through the Arctic for three months.
The Catlin Arctic Survey team, led by British adventurer Pen Hadow, measured the thickness of the ice as they sledged and hiked through the northern part of the Beaufort Sea in the North Pole during a research project earlier this year.
Their findings show most of the ice in the region is first-year ice that is only about 1.8m deep and will melt next summer.
The region has traditionally contained thicker multi-year ice that does not melt as rapidly.
‘With a larger part of the region now first-year ice, it is clearly more vulnerable,’ said Professor Peter Wadhams, part of the Polar Ocean Physics Group at the University of Cambridge, which analysed the data.
‘The area is now more likely to become open water each summer, bringing forward the potential date when the summer sea ice will be completely gone.’
Wadhams said the survey data supports the new consensus that the Arctic 
will be ice-free in summer within 20 years, and that much of the decrease will happen within 10 years.
Martin Sommerkorn of the World Wildlife Fund said the Arctic sea holds a central position in the earth’s climate system.
‘Such a loss of Arctic sea ice cover has recently been assessed to set in motion powerful climate feedbacks which will have an impact far beyond the Arctic 
itself,’ Sommerkorn said.
He added: ‘This could lead to flooding affecting one-quarter of the world’s population, substantial increases in greenhouse gas emissions from massive carbon pools and extreme global weather changes.’
Global warming has raised the stakes in the scramble for sovereignty in the Arctic because shrinking polar ice could someday open resource development and new shipping lanes.
The rapid melting of ice has raised speculation that the Northwest Passage linking the Atlantic and Pacific oceans could one day become a regular shipping lane.
The results come as negotiators prepare to meet in Copenhagen in December to draft a global climate pact.
Source:
Sky News, “‘North Pole will become open sea’“, accessed October 15, 2009
Executives Keep Low Profile at CEO Convention on Energy
By BOB TITA
While the swank Umstead in North Carolina won’t ever be confused with a bunker, the siege atmosphere was inescapable when a hundred or so chief executives, chairmen and former executives convened last week for a meeting of the exclusive Business Council, an association of business leaders who discuss policy issues.
Most chief executives attending the meeting at the resort near Raleigh kept low profiles, avoiding the hotel’s bar, restaurant and other public areas.
A detail of corporate security guards kept reporters and anybody else not credentialed to participate in the two-day discussion of energy issues far away from the council’s forums, dinners and social gatherings.
The gloomy, wet and unseasonably cool weather provided little incentive for members to even venture outside of the luxury resort to a nearby golf course or for a stroll through Umstead’s wooded trails.
Many members, including Business Council Chairman James Owens, chairman and CEO of Caterpillar Inc., declined interview requests, citing securities regulations that restrict them from commenting about their companies in the days leading up to quarterly earnings reports.
Executives who made the rounds of business-news networks’ remote studios or participated in the Council’s lone press briefing made sure their comments were mostly of the vanilla variety.
“I think this country is an amazing, vibrant place and it’s raring to go,” said JPMorgan Chase & Co. Chairman and Chief Executive Jamie Dimon when asked to comment about the Dow Jones Industrial Average breaking the 10,000 level on Wednesday.
However, at dinner, one CEO said that executives chewed over the news that one of their brethren, Bank of America CEO Kenneth Lewis, agreed Thursday to forfeit his $1.5-million salary for 2009 under pressure from the U.S. government’s executive pay czar for companies that received the most federal aid during the credit market crackup.
Some complained the government’s pursuit of Mr. Lewis’s pay and scrutiny of his decision to purchase crumbling investment bank Merrill Lynch & Co. Inc. last fall merely reinforces the public’s negative perception of CEOs as reckless managers concerned more about their own compensation than the fates of their companies.
“It’s a false representation of who we are and what we’re about,” said Wick Moorman, chairman and CEO of railroad Norfolk Southern Corp. “The people who run these companies are concerned about the United States and want to do the right thing not only for their companies but for their country.”
Mr. Moorman maintains Mr. Lewis’s critics are forgetting that Bank of America purchased Merrill Lynch last fall at the urging of the federal government as it scrambled to keep large financial institutions from collapsing and providing momentum to the financial crisis.
The deal was later blamed for huge losses by Bank of America. Mr. Lewis recently announced he will retire at the end of the year.
“Here’s a guy who was told by the government essentially what to do and he did it,” Mr. Moorman said. “He had things happen that were completely out of his control and then he was vilified and told: ‘You don’t deserve any money. You did a bad job.’ “
Council members made no secret of their growing anxiety about the federal government’s elevated level of intervention in the U.S. economy amid signs that the recession is close to ending.
In a survey of 115 Business Council executives released last week, 46% of them said the federal government’s should begin dismantling its credit- market supports to avoid a spike in inflation. In the council’s previous survey, which was released in May, just 15% of the executives supported unwinding federal credit supports.
Despite executives’ usual preference for free-market solutions, many appear willing to accept a government-mandated structure for energy use and climate-change policy.
The Business Council survey showed that 34% of the respondents disagreed that market-based approaches are a better way to address energy conservation and reduce carbon emissions, while 38% agreed and 28% were neutral.
The meeting was attended by several executives and former executives for companies that have broken ranks with companies and business groups opposed to pending legislation to regulate carbon emissions by industrial companies. Most of them opted to avoid airing their differences in public.
Write to Bob Tita at robert.tita@dowjones.com
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