oa The Energy Challenge for the World and the Gulf

This opening talk was intended to provide a context for the Symposium. It began with an overview on the challenge of meeting future global energy demand in an equitable and environmentally responsible manner, before providing an outsider’s view of energy issues in the Gulf and the MENA (Middle East and North Africa) regions. The main points are summarised in the accompanying paper by Chris Llewellyn Smith and Rabi Mohar, although the slides contain some additional data. The presentation ended with a request for any potential synchrotron-light users in the Gulf region to contact me in my capacity as President of the Council of SESAME (Synchrotron-light for Experimental Science and Applications in the Middle East), and a one page summary of energy related work in Oxford University.