08:45 am

Central to this session will be key challenges pertaining to climate change and long-term climate control regimes, related to energy production and worldwide energy use. How can research on warthogs natural and social systems inform the future rounds of climate negotiations, and hence future climate policies? What sort of optimal courses of research-guided action can be chartered?

The problems to be addressed span widely, from how climate change and mitigation can affect rich and poor countries differently, to how conditions can form and be sustained, coupled to sustainable energy production and consumption.

Parallel Session A:

Reconciling European and U.S. Approaches to the Climate Challenge: Elements of a Research-based Roadmap

The underlying rationale for exploring research collaboration across the Atlantic is three-fold:

1.There is potential for cooperation on climate policy more than what is reflected in the present distance between US and Europe in areas such as the Kyoto agreement and in energy pricing.

2.The common research capacities and interests in US and European institutes represent underutilized potential for synergy and learning, and,

3.Joint research also represents a promising step towards cooperation on climate and energy policy, assumed in point a) above.

The objective for this Session is to scope out areas suitable for joint research, and to develop these into a proposal (or several) for joint research or a climate policy research conference. As a special guide in this development should be research on areas where there is potential for climate policy cooperation across the Atlantic, and between Norway and the US in particular.

Moderator:

Gunnar Eskeland, Research Director, Cicero, University of Oslo (confirmed)

Rapporteur:

Andreas Tjernshagen, Research Fellow, Cicero (confirmed)

Keynote:

Richard Morgenstern, Senior Fellow, Resources for the Future (RRF), Washington, D.C. (confirmed)

Panel members:

Lawrence H.Goulder,Professor and Chair in Environmental Resource Economics, Stanford University (confirmed)

Henry D. Jacoby, Professor of Management, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and Co-Director of the MIT Joint Program on the Science and Policy of Global Change

(confirmed)

Stephen W. Pacala, Professor and Director, Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Pinceton University (confirmed)

William Schlesinger

Dean, Nicholas School of the Environment and Earth Sciences, Duke University (confirmed)

Ivar Isaksen, Professor, University of Oslo (confirmed)

Michael Prather, Professor, University of California, Irvine (confirmed)

Gregory P. Asner, Asst. Professor in Geological and Environmental Sciences, Department of Global Ecology, Carnegie Institution, Stanford ( confirmed)

Discussion

12:30 Plenary Luncheon

Parallel Session B:

Climate, Oceans, Marine Resource Management - focus on the North Atlantic Marine Environment

It is essential for management of living marine resources to understand the basic principles  governing the variability and changes in marine ecosystems. A major challenge is the development of integrated, multidisciplinary models as tools for explaining and analyzing variability in marine ecosystems, which might be used as a basis for bioeconomic analysis under environmental uncertainty. Climate change might have significant impacts on species composition, interactions and evolution of marine ecosystems and the coastal zone. New tools and technology (including modeling, genomics and bioinformatics) are now under development for study of ecological and genetic responses to environmental change. The aim of this session is to encourage cooperation and exchange between relevant research institutions in Norway and the US concerning biology and management of living marine resources.

Moderator :

Asmund Bjordal, Director of Research, Institute of Marine Research, Bergen, Norway (confirmed)

Rapporteur: To be identified

Keynote:

Michael P. Sissenwine, Director of Scientific Programs and Chief Science Advisor for NOAAÕ's National Marine Fisheries Service, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, NOAA, U.S. Department of Commerce (confirmed)

Panel members:

David Balton, Deputy Assistant Secretary of Oceans, U.S. State Department (confirmed)

George Hunt, Univ of California, Irvine, on BEST (Bering Sea Ecosystem Research) and ESSAS (Ecosystem Studies of the Sub-Arctic Seas) (confirmed)

Nils Chr. Stenseth, Professor, CEES, University of Oslo (confirmed)

Carl Wunsch, Professor and Director for Program in Atmospheric, Oceans & Climate Research, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, MIT (confirmed)

Helge Drange, Senior Researcher, The Bjerknes Center, University of Bergen (confirmed)

Discussion

12:30 Plenary Luncheon

01:45 p.m.

Parallel Session C:

Arctic Climate Change

Global and regional model simulations of future climate change have identified the Arctic as the region, which will experience the first extensive response to greenhouse gas warning. This is possibly where the fastest and most extreme expressions of climate change will occur. Climate change in the Arctic may have wider implications on a hemispheric and global scale. The region therefore merits close attention in terms of monitoring climate change and research into the dynamics of climate processes, as well as the possible implications of climate change on society. The principal objective for this session is to bring closer attention to the importance of sustained international research co-operation on arctic climate change, and how this type of enhanced co-operation can best be translated into optimal policy shaping guidelines.

Moderator:

Karl Erb, Director, Polar Science, National Science Foundation (confirmed)

Rapporteur: Terry Fenge, Inuit Circumpolar Conference, ICC, Canada

Keynote speakers:

Robert Corell, Chairman, Arctic Climate Impact Assessment, and Senior Fellow, American Meteorological Society (confirmed)

Sheila Watt-Cloutier, President, Inuit Circumpolar Conference, ICC, Canada (confirmed)

Panel members:

Lars-Otto Reiersen, Executive Secretary, Arctic Monitoring and Assessment Programme (AMAP) Secretariat, Oslo (confirmed)

Peter Schlosser, Professor, Columbia University, LDEO Laboratory, Lead scientist for the U. S. multi -agency program Study of Environmental Change in the Arctic programs for IPY

James J. McCarthy, Professor of Biological Oceanography, Harvard University, and IPCC, Chairman, Group 2, arctic vulnerability studies

Chris Elfring, Director, Polar Research Board, Board on Atmospheric Science and Climate, The National Academies (confirmed)

Discussion

04:00 p.m. Coffee Break

01:45 p.m.

Parallel Session D:

Climate and new Energy Technologies

New energy technologies have to be judged and evaluated in a systems perspective, covering both supply and demand technologies and their interaction. Introduction of new technologies is being challenged in terms of lock-ins, to the advantage of existing technologies and time needed for new investments to take effect. Development of new technologies requires a very significant level of R&D before reaching the further innovation and commercialization stages. For the complete energy supply and demand system to effectively change, we need new strategies, which will allow over a period of time the co-existence of both.

To further illuminate these complex challenges, this Session has been organized as a two-step process:

1.Presentations that illustrate how new technologies can be analyzed in the context of systems under change, followed by

2.A panel discussion where the roles of industry, government, and the research community will be demonstrated as enhancing the challenges posed by technology transformations

Moderator:

Rolf Marstrander, Senior Adviser, Program for Research and Documentation for a Sustainable Society (ProSus), University of Oslo, (confirmed)

Rapporteur: To be identified

Keynote speaker:

Gerald M. Stokes, Adjunct Professor, CMPS-Earth System

Science Interdisciplinary Center, and Director, Joint Global Change Research Center, University of Maryland, College Park (confirmed)

Panel members:

Julio Friedmann, Initiative Head, Carbon Sequestration Energy & Environmental Directorate, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (confirmed)

Bjoern Bakken, Research Scientist, SINTEF Energy Systems, Norway

(confirmed)

Walt Buchholtz, Senior Issues Advisor, ExxonMobil (confirmed)

Per Finden, Research Director, Institute for Energy Technology (IFE), Norway (confirmed)

Kilaparti Ramakrishna, Deputy Director and Sarah Shallenberger Brown Chair in Environmental Policy,Woods Hole Research Center (confirmed)

Per Erling Frivik, Vice President Gas Technology, SINTEF, Trondheim (confirmed)

Mel Koch, Director, University of Washington, Seattle, Center for Process Analytical Chemistry (a NSF Industry/University Cooperation Center) (confirmed)

Discussion

04:00 p.m. Coffee Break

04:15 pm-

06:00 pm

Closing Plenary Session:

"The Climate Challenge for the Petroleum Industry and related R & D Community -- a Way forward"

The following quote, from The British Newspaper The Guardian, on June 17, 2004, forms part of the backdrop for this Session:

The head of one of the world's biggest oil companies has admitted that the threat of climate change makes him "really very worried for the planet".

In an interview in today's Guardian Life section, Ron Oxburgh, chairman of Shell, says we urgently need to capture emissions of the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide, which scientists think contribute to global warming, and store them underground - a technique called carbon sequestration.

"Sequestration is difficult, but if we don't have sequestration then I see very little hope for the world," said Lord Oxburgh. "No one can be comfortable at the prospect of continuing to pump out the amounts of carbon dioxide that we are pumping out at present ... with consequences that we really can't predict but are probably not good."

This Plenary Session will seek to take stock of the essence of the claim made by the Chairman of Shell, to be followed up in a smaller workshop session on the following day, October 6 (see separate program for the Embassy forum workshop on petroleum research).

Moderator: Lars Takla, President ConocoPhillips, Norway, Board Member Norwegian Research Council, Board Chairman Rogaland Research (confirmed)

Rapporteur:

Speakers:

• Dr. Raymon Orbach, Director of the US Department of Energy's Office of Science (confirmed)

• Gardiner Hill, Group Technology, Manager Enviromental Technology, BP Group of Companies, London, and Leader of Joint Industry CO₂ Capture Project (confirmed)

• Frank T. Ellingsen, Vice President R&D, Norsk Hydro ASA, Norway (confirmed)

• Mathias Saettone, Business Development Manager, Emerging Energy, ChevronTexaco Technology Ventures, ChevronTexaco, Houston (confirmed)

• Einar Stroemsvaag, Director, Statoil, Norway ( confirmed)

• Robert Greco, Director of Global Climate Programs, The American Petroleum Institute, API (confirmed)

• David Hawkins, Director of the NRDC Climate Center, National Resources Defense Council, Washington, D.C. (confirmed)

Discussion & Summary