São Paulo is currently the global capital of ethanol. The statement was made by the president of the São Paulo Sugar Cane Agroindustry Union (Unica), Eduardo Pereira de Carvalho, during the launch of the São Paulo Ethanol Summit 2007.
The event will discuss the present and the future of ethanol in the world, its socio-economic and environmental implications, and the energy contribution that Brazilian sugar cane plantations will make to sustainable development over the next decades.
The meeting will bring together the world's leading fuel specialists on June 4 and 5, at the World Trade Center (WTC), in the southeastern Brazilian city of São Paulo.
"This will be the largest event ever carried out in Brazil," said the president of Unica.
For two days, researchers, engineers, opinion makers, government authorities, and government representatives from other countries will discuss the scientific, economic, environmental and social aspects of the current energy model.
According to Carvalho, the goal is precisely to create an opportunity of bringing together people who represent different ways of facing the energy crisis in the planet.
"We are living the dawn of a new age, of a new energy paradigm. The reality of global warming brought the issue to the forefront, and different visions are bound to provoke reflection," said Carvalho.
"The New Frontiers of Ethanol – Challenges of Energy in the 21st Century" will be the key issue in the plenary sessions. Parallel to the sessions, a program of lectures will be conducted, focusing on five panels: Technology; Research and Development; Sustainability and its Economic, Environmental, and Social Vectors; Markets and Investment; Political and Parliamentary Sustenance, and Project Brazil.
Lecturers who have already confirmed their participation include the head of the Environment department at the United Nations Energy Program, Mark Radka; the manager of the Carbon Credit Program of the Department for Sustainable Development for Latin America and the Caribbean at the World Bank, Chandra Shekhar Sinhá, and the vice-president of Archer Daniels Midland (the largest ethanol producer in the United States), John Rice.
View the complete schedule of the São Paulo Ethanol Summit at the site http://www.ethanolsummit.com/website/br/programacao.asp
Anba
