The Focus-Abengoa Foundation opens the Energy Transition and Climate Change School directed by Josep Borrell, with a lecture by Lord Nicholas Stern

May 23, 2014

• The School is taking place at the headquarters of the Focus-Abengoa Foundation, the Hospital de los Venerables in Seville, on 26, 27 and 28 May
• Lord Nicholas Stern is author of the renowned “Stern Review on the Economics of Climate Change”

Seville, 23 May 2014.- The Focus-Abengoa Foundation has organised the Energy Transition and Climate Change School, which will take place at its headquarters in the Hospital de los Venerables, Seville, on 26, 27 and 28 May.

The opening ceremony will take place at 8.30 pm on 26 May with a lecture by Lord Nicholas Stern entitled “The future of action on climate change: An opportunity for sustained growth”. Lord Stern is Chair of the Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change, a former Chief Economist of the World Bank and author of the renowned “Stern Review on the Economics of Climate Change”, which analysed the effects of climate change on the global economy for the first time. Lord Stern, who was knighted for services to economics, is also author of “A Blueprint for a Safer Planet”, a defence of the battle against climate change that is seen as a follow-up to his Review and a criticism “of those that advocate inaction faced with this problem on economic grounds”, as many experts in the field have noted.

The School is part of the Forum of the Focus-Abengoa Foundation and aims to promote and encourage debate about the energy transition process in Europe and its social benefits.

The School is taking place at a time when the economic crisis has overtaken climate change on the political agenda, even though the latest report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) continues to warn about its seriousness. The politics of renewable energy, the controversy surrounding shale gas and regulation of the Spanish electricity market are just some of the issues that will be examined on this course.

Focus-Abengoa Foundation

The Focus-Abengoa Foundation was created in 1982 as a result of the cultural work begun in 1972 by Abengoa with the publication of the works Temas Sevillanos (Themes of Seville) and Iconografía de Sevilla (Iconography of Seville). A collection of documents, books and engravings on the Kingdom of Seville and by Sevillian authors was created during the same period. This initial cultural work showed Abengoa’s directors the importance of the company’s involvement in activities that directly benefit society, beyond the firm’s core technology work, which led to the creation of the Seville Cultural Fund Foundation. The Hospital de los Venerables, a 17th century monument and the headquarters of the Focus-Abengoa Foundation in Seville, has housed the Diego Velázquez Research Centre, a leading institution for studying and disseminating the Baroque era and the Sevillian period of this universally renowned artist, since the acquisition of Velázquez’s Santa Rufina by the Foundation in 2007. The focus on this crucial era of the Golden Age is complemented with the legacy from Professor Alfonso E. Pérez Sánchez, bequeathed to the Foundation in 2011. It comprises his library, photo library, personal archive and art collection and is being catalogued to help create a library specialising in the art and culture of the Baroque period. http://focus.abengoa.es/

For more information:

Abengoa Communication Department

Patricia Malo de Molina

Tel: +34 954 93 71 11

E-mail: communication@abengoa.com

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