THE Minister of Environment and Energy, Mr. Thodoros Skylakakiswas the speaker of the major thematic section of Olympia Forum IV – which is organized by the Delphi Economic Forum and the newspaper “PATRIS” – on the transition to climate neutrality.

“We have to separate the European from the national resources and make a redirection regarding the energy transition, because the energy that comes from natural resources cannot be financed as before. This means that Greece, in order to achieve the energy transition, must start the redistribution of resources, without straying from our goals, but to go even faster.” Mr. Skylakakis emphasized the above at the beginning of his presentation, pointing out that “Europe must pay more attention to the issue of adaptation to climate change and negotiate accordingly with developing countries. At the same time, it should recognize the distinct characteristics and needs of each region. No one can make safe predictions about the intensity of future climate events at this time.”

The Minister also referred to the deadly bad weather that hit Thessaly, saying that “we have to live according to the new reality. In Thessaly, 8 billion tons of water fell, which for our anti-flooding projects was extreme, since such phenomena occur once every 50 years. So with these projects we could not manage such a large amount of water.”

Regarding what should be done the day after the disaster, Mr. Skylakakis emphasized that “it is necessary to introduce together with the concept of flood protection, that of flood resilience. Our planning should be based on the new climate models, and at the same time a corresponding cost analysis should be done. But above and beyond everything, we must prioritize human life.”

Then Mr. Skylakakis spoke about energy storage and about the particularly important plans that are being prepared very carefully by the Ministry of Environment and Energy. “It is necessary to deal with the long “tail” that exists in photovoltaics, which creates two fundamental problems, the first concerns the speed of investments, and the second concerns storage, as photovoltaics have a few hours of operation. Also, for floating wind turbines, you should know that there are many areas in Greece where similar investments can be made, and serious planning has been done on the subject, to start seabed and wind potential research. It is a bet for us that the first floating wind farm will be ready before 2030. It is a bet that we will win,” he said.

Finally, when asked about the price of electricity in Greece in winter, the Minister of Environment and Energy emphasized that “we are affected by the weather in Europe, but also by the gas market around the world. So no safe prediction can be made as to whether there will be a crisis. But there will be support and help for consumers if problems are observed.”

The discussion was moderated by the journalist of Mononews, Marina Protonotariou.