Following the successful launch of the Low Carbon Energy for Development Network (LCEDN) on the 13th January 2012 in London, the LCEDN will be holding its first major international conference at Loughborough University on the 4-5th April 2012.

The theme of the conference is ‘Energy and Development: Learning From The Past’ and thanks to support from the Department of Energy and Climate Change (DECC) and the EPSRC we are privileged to be hosting a range of international speakers from across Asia, Africa and Latin America in the specific fields of solar power and bio-energy around which this conference is based; we are also hosting a parallel online event to which we offer an open invite to academics and post-graduates (in the UK initially) who may be interested but would be unable to attend in person.

The two-day programme will be divided into sections on:

i)      The global context of energy for development
ii)     The historical experience of solar power in the global south
iii)    The historical experience of bio-energy in the global south
iv)     Looking forward through the prisms of:
a.      Major Challenges
b.      New Technologies
c.      Demand Management

This conference is the first of three planned for this year so please register your interest even if you are unable to make this one or your specialization lies somewhere else.

The conference is directed at any academics/practitioners (loosely based in the UK) who are involved in low carbon transitions and energy for development – we are specifically interested in bridging the gap between technologists, engineers and the social sciences and welcome interest from any discipline so long only as they have an interest in energy and development; this could for instance include gender, legal/policy, solar, bio-energy, sociology, anthropology (not an exclusive list).

If you would like to attend the conference, please go to the LCEDN website (http://www.lcedn.com/) and click on the ‘activities’ tab at the top of the page; conference details are all there and following the link enables you to register online. There is also a membership button on the home page which will allow you to register your interest in the LCEDN and become a member.

If you have any further questions please either contact me directly or visit the website and e-mail us directly,

Regards,


Dr Jon Cloke
Lecturer/Research Associate
Geography Department
Loughborough University
Loughborough LE11 3TU

Office: 01509 228193
Mob: 07984 813681