Christopher Flavin

Christopher Flavin is the President of the Worldwatch Institute, an independent research organization focused on natural resource and environmental issues, based in Washington, DC. He is also a founding member of the Board of Directors of the Business Council for Sustainable Energy and is a member of the National Academy of Sciences Board on Energy and Environmental Systems, the Climate Institute, and the Environmental and Energy Study Institute.^[1] His research and writing focus is international energy and climate policy.^[2][3]

Flavin has participated in several notable international conferences, including the Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro in 1992 and the Climate Change Conference in Kyoto, Japan, in 1997. He has testified before national and state legislatures and meets frequently with government and international leaders.^[3]

Flavin is a native of Monterey, California and a cum laude graduate of Williams College, where he studied economics, biology, and environmental studies.^[4]

Quotations

• "Renewable energy provides 18 percent of total net electricity generation worldwide. Renewable energy generators are spread across the globe, and wind power alone already provides a significant share of electricity in some regions: for example, 14 percent in the U.S. state of Iowa, 40 percent in the northern German state of Schleswig-Holstein, and 20 percent in the nation of Denmark. Some countries get most of their power from renewables, including Iceland (100 percent), Brazil (85 percent), Austria (62 percent), New Zealand (65 percent), and Sweden (54 percent)."

• "Solar hot water provides an important contribution to meeting hot water needs in many countries, most importantly in China, which now has fully 70 percent of the global total (180 GWth). Most of these systems are installed on multi-family apartment buildings and meet a portion of the hot water needs of an estimated 50–60 million households in China, or more than 150 million people. Worldwide, total installed solar water heating systems meet a portion of the water heating needs of over 70 million households."

• "Renewable biofuels are meanwhile making inroads in the transportation fuels market and are beginning to have a measurable impact on demand for petroleum fuels, contributing to a decline in oil consumption in the United States in particular starting in 2006. Although the rapid growth of previous years has slowed, production of biofuels for transportation grew 58 percent between 2007 and 2009. The 93 billion liters of biofuels produced worldwide in 2009 displaced the equivalent of an estimated 68 billion liters of gasoline, equal to about 5 percent of world gasoline production."

-- Christopher Flavin in REN21 (2010). Renewables 2010 Global Status Report p. 53.

Selected publications

• Power Surge: Guide to the Coming Energy Revolution, W.W. Norton, 1994.
• Rising Sun, Gathering Winds: Policies to Stabilize the Climate and Strengthen Economies, Worldwatch Paper 138, November 1997.
• Regular contributions to State of the World , Vital Signs and World Watch.
• Low-Carbon Energy: A Roadmap, 2008.

See also

• State of the World 2008
• Lester Brown
• Amory Lovins
• Nourishing the Planet project
• State of the World 2011: Innovations that Nourish the Planet

References