Redesigning energy for people and planet - the next steps

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It builds on insights and reflections gathered from recent global energy discussions, including the World Energy Congress in Rotterdam. The themes explored here remain critical as we navigate the challenges of energy transitions.

The World Energy community as a “change maker” community

As famously said by Margaret Mead, we “... are continually faced with great opportunities which are brilliantly disguised as unsolvable problems."

The World Energy Council has evolved over the last 100 years from when it first formed to align energy interests for peace and prosperity to today as we grapple with making faster, fairer and more far reaching energy transitions happen in a new era of energy for people and the planet. For 100 years we have convened power for the common good and ‘connected the dots’ to change the world.

Today we convene diverse energy interests and needs in the broadest sense and support increasingly diverse regions in leading and learning together. This includes the transitions into energy by developing economies as well as the transition away from fossil fuels which is part of greening everything.

As the World Energy Council’s global community moves towards the next World Energy Congress, which takes place in Saudi Arabia in October 2026, we are working to “become the inclusive and intergenerational change maker” through three bold moves:

• A new space for convening power and reconnecting the dots
• Transforming the World Energy Trilemma to enhance transparency and trustworthiness in how diverse regions, countries, cities and others measure and track progress on managing energy transitions from different starting points
• Enabling a global step change in active energy literacy

The direction is clear, however, what got us here will not get us to where we need to go.

We will convene our growing membership communities in the Global South as we shape a more inclusive, inspiring and impactful world energy leadership agenda.

Transforming the World Energy Trilemma framework 

Our World Energy community will transform how we measure and track progress in making faster, fairer and more far reaching energy transitions happen. 

We are looking for partners to help us radically redesign the World Energy Trilemma framework which is now used in over 120 countries to measure performance on energy security, affordability, and sustainability. We aim to extend the use of a new transformational trilemma tool to regions, cities, and citizens. This is essential if societies are to manage deeper decarbonisation with justice and resilience to new kinds of energy shocks which are already building up in the system. 

We are also aiming to extend our ‘activating’ energy literacy campaigns which enable more people and diverse communities to better understand their roles and choices and hold their leaders to account.

We can build on successful community-wide foundations such as Future Energy Leaders Programmes, Women in Energy, Kids in Energy and World Energy Academies. 

Addressing the demand as well as supply-side in creating a new energy story

Unlike previous energy transitions which were driven by improvements in energy density and efficiency, we cannot advance right now without the pull of demand transformation and global collaborations. Supply-side World energy leadership, not to be confused with globalisation, involves walking the talk, active listening and engaging diversity in shared sense making.

Without energy there is no civilisation.

All living systems evolve through a fundamental shift in their underlying energy systems. The hope for humanity is to urgently redesign energy for people and planet as part of a much deeper change in thinking from industrial societies to an ecological civilisation. The challenge is to reconnect climate and sustainability agendas – greening everything cannot be achieved all in one go and energy systems (which include people) are  the ultimate connector of the dots between deeper decarbonisation, global justice and multi-local resilience.

We are cultivating a new energy story.

We are all learning how humanity is part of – rather than apart from - Nature. We are forging a new shared vocabulary on energy developments which is more suited to managing the health of connections than military jargon and sporting terms – such a ‘war on carbon’ and ‘race to zero’- which have contributed to fear of the future.

And we are taking care in the appropriation of ecological thinking. For example, the increasingly popular use of the term ‘energy ecosystems’ highlights opportunities for public-private partnership. On the other hand, some of these  ‘ecosystems’ seem to be an exercise in top-down control, rather than multi-stakeholder interventions and have triggered a new kind of ‘convenor of convenors’ competition.

Success depends instead on the humbler exercise of inclusive and collaborative convening power. This reaches beyond CEOs and Ministers to engage the much wider system of change makers and spotlights Global South, bottom-up engagement and wiser, as well as wider, uses of energy.

Connecting ecology with economy and energy to create 100s of 1000s of smaller steps

A new shape of  ‘ecol-econ-energy' - people-centric systems is needed to connect energy users and suppliers, system owners and operators, regulators and entrepreneurs, global value chains and place-based industries and communities.

A better-quality leadership conversation is needed and possible if we resist “technobabble” (an overly tech focus) and recognise the deeper connections between power, justice, and love!

Humanising energy is about starting our journey together from many different places – not a moonshot technology mission, nor a mountain summit.

Making faster, fairer, and more far-reaching energy transitions happen will succeed through 100s and 1000s of smaller steps IF attention is directed to closing the gaps in transparency, trustworthiness, and transformational actions. IF we navigate uncomfortable choices about collaboration. IF we are future-mindful about who is the ‘we’ in convening power for common good.

The World Energy Council is engaging more diverse and intergenerational energy interests and change makers and involving wider stakeholders in transforming demand and supply to build the new energy roads to our common future. And I sincerely hope that you will join us.

Let’s shape the next 100 years of energy for people and the planet together.

This article is also published on the author's blog. illuminem Voices is a democratic space presenting the thoughts and opinions of leading Sustainability & Energy writers, their opinions do not necessarily represent those of illuminem.