Meet the Industry - March 14, 2016
Katrín Jakobsdóttir, MP, Alþingi, Left-Green Movement
REYKJAVIK, March 14 - Parliament member, former Minister of Education, Science and Culture and the current head of the Left-Green movement political party, Katrín Jakobsdóttir, spoke at the Iceland School of Energy´s “Meet the Energy Industry” talk on Monday the 14th of March. Katrín discussed Iceland´s role within the COP21 negotiations in November. Despite being close to 100% zero or low carbon electricity, she argues that there still being plenty of changes that need to be made in order to help meet decarbonization goals, specifically within transport sectors. Some items mentioned in order to tackle issues within the Icelandic transport sector was electrifying the fleet and promoting bicycling. These items however would require substantial investment in infrastructure, a move that the Left-Green party supports. Katrín quipped how environmentalism in Iceland is very different from Europe in that they have the luxury of focusing on preservation instead of restoration of already damaged land. Additionally she holds reservations concerning using green energy to power potentially environmentally unfriendly heavy industry such as aluminum and ferro-silicon production. With this, Katrín mentioned concern with Iceland´s capacity to simultaneously produce enough energy to warrant the commission of an interconnector to Europe as well as maintaining current levels of heavy industry demand.
Katrín is adamantly opposed to Iceland getting involved in offshore oil drilling in the “Drekasvæði” region. She believes that Iceland should make a political statement by not pursuing potential oil resources in the region and maintain its strategy of relying on other more sustainable energy sources.
This event gave Iceland School of Energy Students the unique opportunity to sit down with a leading political figure in Icelandic politics in order to distill her party positions in relation to many of the issues facing energy and environmental policy both internationally and in Iceland.