Helping to mobilize 100 nations.

A few months I received a call from Stephan Contius, a top assistant to Germany's Environment Minister, Jurgen Trittin, who had a proposal to make. Stephan wanted to know if Worldwatch would be interested in co hosting the launch of a major initiative on renewable energy at the United Nations in New York.

The German proposal had its genesis in a debate that had received a lot of attention at last year's World Summit on Sustainable Development in Johannesburg. A sizable group of European, Latin American, and small island nations had pushed hard for the summit's final plan to include specific, quantitative targets for the development of renewable energy around the world.

The group had hoped to build on Europe's success in developing a robust renewable energy industry during the 1990s. Its proposal had been thwarted, however, when a coalition of fossil fuel-dependent governments, ranging from the United States to China and most of OPEC, formed to block it. Two weeks of diplomatic infighting had resulted in a weak compromise--a document making only vague reference to a need for "increased reliance" on renewables, coupled with a similar nod to nuclear power.

Rather than give up on one of the most hopeful proposals to emerge in Johannesburg, renewable energy supporters decided to attempt a kind of end-run around the formal UN process. German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder took the lead, using his speech at the Summit to announce plans for a ministerial conference on renewable energy to be held in the former German capital, Bonn, in June 2004. The aim, he said, would be to provide international policy advice, financial support, and whatever else it takes to accelerate development of renewable energy.

It was the preparation for the Bonn conference that Stephan Contius wanted to discuss when he called last winter. We agreed to work together to assemble a group of environmental ministers in New York to begin preparations for the Bonn conference next year. The event took place on April 29 at UN headquarters, before an audience that included diplomats, non-government representatives, and ministers. As chair, I had the honor of introducing the four environment ministers who spoke: Jurgen Trittin from Germany, Marina Silva from Brazil, Altero Matteoli from Italy, and Valli Moosa from South Africa.

Each minister outlined his or her view of what must be done to shift the direction of the global energy economy. What struck me about all four was how clearly they saw the potential for renewable energy to play a major role in the near future--and their commitment to making it happen. Three private sector leaders also spoke at the meeting, adding a hard-nosed business perspective to the enthusiasm of the four politicians.

It will be some time before we know how successful the Bonn conference will have proven in shifting the policies of the leading nations. But the events of recent months already mark a coming of age for renewables--and for Worldwatch as well. For over a quarter century, Worldwatch has documented the gradual emergence of these clean new energy sources, analyzing the development of the technology and business as well as the economic and policy barriers to their development. One of the early figures in this field was Denis Hayes, the co-founder of Earth Day in 1970, who later joined the Worldwatch staff before going on to head the U.S. National Renewable Energy Laboratory. Our later work included my book Power Surge: Guide to the Coming Energy Revolution, as well as major papers and State of the World chapters on energy and the energy/climate connection by Nicholas Lenssen, Seth Dunn, and our current energy team leader, Janet Sawin.

During the 1980s, we helped spread the word of renewables' early successes. In World Watch, we published articles on photovoltaic rooftops in Africa, solar cookers in China, wind farms in California, and double-digit growth of renewables worldwide. I remember conversations during that decade with Europeans who wanted to know the secrets to the success of the booming wind energy market in California. Today, Californians travel to Europe to see the leading edge of that industry. In Stare of the World 2003, we documented how Germany, starting virtually from scratch but with the impetus of strong new policies adopted early in the decade, had emerged as the world leader in wind energy in the 1990s.

Until recently, Worldwatch relied largely on the Institute's own publishing network and the world media to disseminate our information and ideas, leaving it up to others to determine how best to follow through on that work. This approach had many successes (environmental author Bill McKibben has said that without Worldwatch, "the environmental movement as we know it today could not exist"), but it is no longer adequate to address the scale or urgency of today's environmental problems.

In response, I began working two years ago with my colleagues on the Worldwatch staff and board to devise a new strategic plan. The resulting plan aims to better target our work, and to seek out the best opportunities to spur change. We are sticking with our core commitment to provide solid, factual, and reliable data and analysis of the world's most pressing problems--but to couple that with the development and dissemination of solutions that will contribute to a sustainable world.

In 2004, for example, we will be giving special attention to the subject of sustainable consumption--a focused way to get at the roots of pervasive issues such as global climate change, biodiversity loss, resource depletion, poverty, and population. We are forming partnerships with other organizations to shape thinking and action on consumption. Our plan is to use State of the World 2004, World Watch, and other publications, as well as our ability to convene key organizations and arrange events, to draw attention to the enormous impact that growing levels of material consumption are having on the planet--and how to reduce those impacts.

We believe that these efforts, making the most of strategic partnerships with other organizations, will allow us to reach key constituencies that can then follow through with specific activities such as educating, organizing conferences, and lobbying political leaders. The new partnerships include international institutions, government ministries, business, academia, the religious community, and NGOs. Among our active partners are the Green Guide, Brazil's Open University for the Atlantic Forest, the Center for a New American Dream, the Consumer Choice Council, Global Legislators for a Balanced Environment, and Germany's Heinrich Boell Foundation and Germanwatch.

Our efforts to engage decision makers more directly have already yielded some gratifying results in the past couple of years:

* After meeting with the Institute's energy team in the summer of 2001, members of the Japanese Diet's Environment Committee returned to Tokyo and ratified the Kyoto Protocol, despite the persistent lobbying of the Bush Administration.

* The European Union's 12 embassies in Washington chose the Worldwatch Institute over the U.S. State Department to brief its environmental counselors following the World Summit. I felt that that choice spoke volumes, not just about the schism that has developed between Washington and Brussels during the Bush administration, but also about the Europeans' view that Worldwatch can be counted on for a highly credible and non-ideological analysis of the policy challenges now facing the world.

* And then there was the feedback we got from the president of Brazil, Fernando Henrique Cardoso, who wrote the foreword to State of the World 2002. In reflecting on the role Worldwatch has played, he stated, "the enrichment that they bring to the public debate on sustainable development is by itself an auspicious event. It is a substantive contribution towards the strengthening of awareness of the need for pressing forward in the building of a better world."

Worldwatch Institute is a small organization devoted to addressing massive issues that have a global constituency. We do not have the resources or the intention to lobby legislators or to engage in a global media campaign. But we are able, via the information and ideas we produce, to spur others to action. Rarely will Worldwatch alone be responsible for a major shift in policy. But if our work is timely, accurate, and compelling--and if we work effectively with others--our efforts will send out powerful ripples, and begin a sea change.

That is what we now see happening with renewable energy. More than 100 nations are expected to gather in Bonn next year, along with a similar number of interested corporations and NGOs. I hope we can use that conference, and the period leading up to it, to bring greater global attention to our vision of a post fossil fuel future, and to help the world move decisively toward that future.

Of course, our efforts will extend beyond the battles over renewable energy, to a range of other fronts on which the sustainability of the human enterprise is at stake. This letter will be followed, in forthcoming issues of the magazine, by a series of first-person accounts of individual researchers' experiences in their increasingly targeted efforts to help change the world for the better.