With cheap oil supplies dwindling and pressure on to decrease emissions, there are significant question marks over how we're going to get around in the future. Action needs to be taken soon but in what form should that action come? Are we going to be relying on biofuels, electric and hydrogen or some other form of energy to power our vehicles in years to come? Euronews met with Dr. Oliver Inderwildi of Wadham College in Oxford, lead author of one of the most comprehensive academic studies ever published on transportation.

Dr Inderwildi says we shouldn't be too hasty to draw immediate conclusions on exactly which route is the future. "I don't think we should pick winners here," he tells us. "It's important that we give R&D incentives for all the different opportunities that there are. We have to think about alternative fuels, we have to think about electrification of transportation, we definitely have to think about fuel cells and the hydrogen economy as well. However, I don't think it's a good idea to pick a winner out of those. We should give incentives and let the market decide which is the best option."

There is not one solution for all countries though. While Dr Inderwildi believes electric may work for France, he does not think it is necessarily the right answer for America and Britain. "If you're running an electric vehicle in the UK or the US they hardly reduce emissions at all," he continues. "However let's look at France. The country you live in is generated from nuclear sources, very low C02 emissions from nuclear power plants, and hence in France electric vehicles are really an option. However not in the UK and US, so we really have to decarbonise the electricity sector as well in parallel with promoting electric transportation."

Dr Inderwildi's over-riding message is that nothing will change quickly. The current fleet of cars will be on the road until 2025, so any cut in emissions will only be gradual. "There is no silver bullet," Dr Inderwildi concludes. "We have to get a smooth transition to a new transportation system by using now in the short term more efficient smaller cars, by choosing less carbon intensive modes of transport, like public transportation and railways. That's what we can do in the short term and at the same time we should give R&D incentives to improve novel technologies like electric cars, green electricity production and fuel cells."

On Tuesday 26 January 2010, Comment:Visions invited decision-makers and stakeholders to discuss the implications of the COP15 conference in Copenhagen on future EU climate policy. The debate took place in the European Parliament.

The panel :

Mr Jo Leinen MEP, chairman of the environment committee, leader of the European Parliament delegation to COP15

Mr Jos Delbeke, deputy director-general for environment, European Commission

Mrs Rosario Bento-Pais, acting head of unit,"Climate strategy, international negotiation and monitoring of EU action", European Commission

Dr Nick Campbell, chairman, climate change working group, BusinessEurope

Mr Matthias Duwe, Director, Climate action network Europe

Moderation: Tim King, editor, European Voice

Conclusions: Dr Graeme Sweeney, executive vice-president, CO2, Shell

It may not seem like it after the cold snap that gripped Europe for much of the Christmas and New Year period, but the Earth is getting warmer. Some of this is down to natural causes, but we humans are becoming increasingly culpable. We are changing the composition of the planet's atmosphere through our use of greenhouse gasses like C02, which absorb much more infra-red radiation than is natural and then emit it as heat. The spectre of man-made and rapid climate change is now real, researchers say. So what are we going to do about it? This month's comment:visions looks at some of the possible answers that were raised at the recent climate change conference in Copenhagen.

One sector that is expected to grow exponentially is Carbon Capture and Storage. Jeff Chapman of the Carbon Capture and Storage Association explains how this process is already in use and how it could be put to even more effective use in the future. He says: "There are four major projects in the world that have been created solely for the purpose of storing CO2. One is in the centre of the North Sea, this is the oldest project which has been operating for thirteen years and has been injecting a million tonnes a year into a saline formation. The International Energy Agency has published a report suggesting that we need 3,400 projects by 2050. That will save 20% of total greenhouse gas emissions by that time."

Adel El Gammal of the European PhotoVoltaic Industry Association is a champion of a solar solution, believing that the sun's energy can partly replace fossil fuel-generated energy. "We are convinced that photovoltaic is a key part of the global solution to increasing energy demand," Adel tells us. "It is one of the only renewables that can integrate seamlessly in dense urban environments and this is important when you know that more than 50% of the world population is living in cities and cities are the main contributor to greenhouse gas emissions. We believe that by 2020 PV will become competitive for 55% to 75% of the electricity market in Europe. It will be hugely competitive by the next decade."

Meanwhile, Jeremy Legget, Chairman of Solarcentury, the UK's leading solar energy company, believes businesses can aid in the solution - with backing from their governments. He adds: "Really, there's an inevitability about what we call a clean tech revolution. The question is can it come fast enough to deal with global warming. That's where the governments come in. If they really lead, if they can put in place policies to match their rhetoric on this subject, most of the business world can deliver the changes that are necessary."

The Copenhagen Climate Change conference may not have delivered the result that many were hoping for, but it did show that a revolution is waiting in the wings. That engine of change - human enterprise - is ready to deliver.

The success of global industrialisation throughout the 20th Century has come at a price. We burn through 85 million barrels of oil and millions of tonnes of coal every day, and such massive consumption has caused climate change. At the start of the year, Euronews began a journey to find a way to reduce our greenhouse gas emissions without compromising the energy supplies the planet relies on. In this month's Comment:Visions, we look at some of the results.

There's a wide selection of possible solutions, varying from the controversial topic of nuclear power to Carbon Capture and Storage. Erik Lindberg, who is based in Trondheim, Norway, is a champion of the latter. He believes that with some small changes to everyday life, such as in the transport industry, Carbon Capture and Storage could be the long-term solution for the next few hundred years.

In Wissington, UK Dr. Jeremy Woods believes biofuels are the way forward. Biofuels are made from living materials and only emit the CO2 from the plants they originally came from. Meanwhile, Janne Wallenius, of the Forsmark nuclear power plant in Sweden, thinks that in 40 years nuclear power could provide one third of the electricity production of the world.

The issue is a thorny one and it may take more than one answer to solve it. Paul Nieuwenhuis, an expert in sustainable transportation based in Cardiff, argues just that. He believes that each country must create a solution that fits them, that, for example, what is right for an oil rich area such as the Middle East may not be right for a country such as Iceland, where electricity or hydrogen may be more logical solutions.

Ultimately, the only solution may be to change attitudes as well as policies. Italian professor Enzo Tiezzi and Oslo-based Dr Pal Prestrud are both confident that human nature can win through and that people will adapt to the changes necessary to make them a success. They, and many other leading figures that will shape the future of our planet, explain their thoughts further in a series of fascinating interviews.

The emission of greenhouse gases has been the heart of the matter in environmental discourse throughout its growth and development. For as long as the science has told us that the levels of greenhouse gases in the earth atmosphere are damaging the planet, political attempts to reach agreement on a reduction of emissions have been ongoing.

The Kyoto protocol, aimed at limiting the amount of greenhouse gas emissions and therefore stabilising the environment, was adopted nearly twelve years ago and came into force in 2005. However, despite being signed and ratified by 184 countries, Kyoto has not seen a reduction in greenhouse emissions and, crucially, the USA has never ratified the treaty therefore is not bound by it.

In this month’s Comment Visions we travel to Norway to talk to a man whose career has involved studying the changing nature of our planet. Dr Pal Prestud is an ecologist and serves as the Director of the Centre for Climate and Environmental Research in Oslo. His work has focused on the Polar Regions, which have acted as an early warning system for the sort of climatic changes greenhouse gases are driving.

In this interview Dr Prestud talks about the need to understand the impact of changes in climate and the way in which the earth’s infrastructure and ecology is interlinked. As the United Nations Conference on Climate Change prepares to meet in Copenhagen he also talks of the need for a political solution and the importance of US participation.

The perennial question of what transport will look like in the future has been replaced, in recent years, with a far more important and urgent question; how will this transport be powered? As fossil fuels dwindle and new technology becomes necessary rather than desirable, how we get from A to B is climbing up the global political agenda.

No form of transport is as critical in this debate as the motor car. The internal combustion changed the way we live, but its power source is running dry so this month Comment Visions meets Dr Paul Nieuwenhuis, an academic, adviser, environmentalist and car enthusiast.

If that sounds like a contradictory CV it shouldn’t; Dr Nieuwenhuis’s twin passions for cars and the planet form the core of his work at Cardiff University where he is co-director of the prestigious Centre for Automotive Industry Research at the University’s business school. His work looks at the future of the motor car and, crucially, how the car will be powered in a world transformed by changes in energy demand and supply.

In this fascinating and wide-ranging interview Dr Nieuwenhuis discusses how local energy resources will lead to different solutions for different places, how cars will be built differently in the future and even proposes the idea of a world without car dealers!

This month Comment Visions travels to Germany, to visit a remarkable town...

Wolfgang Geisinger is in charge of powering the town of Unterhaching, in his role as Managing Director, Geothermie Unterhaching GmbH. The reason Comment Visions sought him out is that Unterhaching is powered almost entirely by Geothermal energy, derived from an underground reservoir beneath the town.

When it was discovered in the 1990's this natural source of energy became the starting point for an exciting, enterprising community project in this small town south of Munich. The town raised the funds to drill into the reservoir and create a geothermal power station to harness the energy. Entirely owned by the town the power station provides heating and power for the area itself as well as selling energy to Germany's national grid.

In a fascinating look at how a small community has chosen its own path amid the bigger, more fragmented, energy crisis debate Wolgang Geisinger describes how Unterhaching came together to control it's own energy supplies and the way in which it has changed the town.

For twenty five years, as economies have grown, technology has developed and resources dwindled, Professor Enzo Tiezzi has been a consistent voice of criticism of the prevailing industrial and economic models.

In this month’s Comment Visions we travel to Italy to meet with Professor Tiezzi and get his views on the energy debate within the wider context of his work – the study of sustainability. A champion of the idea of sustainability across different fields and disciplines, Professor Tiezzi has seen his work shift from under-regarded research on the margins of the debate to a central theme in our search for solutions to a global issue.

In this fascinating interview Professor Tiezzi talks about the need for an economic model that pays more heed to the laws of nature and explains the difference between development and growth and the significance of this difference as regards sustainability.

A self-declared optimist about the future, he is nevertheless candid about the likelihood of conflict as a growing global population is faced with diminishing natural resources, but remains confident that a move beyond the myopic obsession with economic growth that has dominated the past few decades will reap rewards for all. As he puts it “we need ethics and aesthetics. We need beauty, we need common good.”

For twenty five years, as economies have grown, technology has developed and resources dwindled, Professor Enzo Tiezzi has been a consistent voice of criticism of the prevailing industrial and economic models.

In this month’s Comment Visions we travel to Italy to meet with Professor Tiezzi and get his views on the energy debate within the wider context of his work – the study of sustainability. A champion of the idea of sustainability across different fields and disciplines, Professor Tiezzi has seen his work shift from under-regarded research on the margins of the debate to a central theme in our search for solutions to a global issue.

In this fascinating interview Professor Tiezzi talks about the need for an economic model that pays more heed to the laws of nature and explains the difference between development and growth and the significance of this difference as regards sustainability.

A self-declared optimist about the future, he is nevertheless candid about the likelihood of conflict as a growing global population is faced with diminishing natural resources, but remains confident that a move beyond the myopic obsession with economic growth that has dominated the past few decades will reap rewards for all. As he puts it “we need ethics and aesthetics. We need beauty, we need common good.”

Nuclear power; the feared and unloved energy source, which proved so controversial during the second half of the 20th century, is back.

Well, more accurately, it never went away, but as we look towards solutions to the energy crisis that are sustainable, long-lasting and reduce carbon emissions, nuclear power is back on the agenda. It’s supporters contend that nuclear power fulfils all the criteria as an viable alternative to fossil fuels and in this month’s Comment Visions we talk with one expert who believes it has a key role to play in meeting the planet’s energy demands.

Professor Janne Wallenius is a reactor physicist at the KTH Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm. In this eye-opening interview he talks about the advances made in the technology around nuclear power, both in terms of the safety of the plants themselves and new techniques for storing used fuel.

Could nuclear power provide 40% of the planet’s electricity needs in the future? Professor Wallenius believes that this is not only possible, but inevitable and desirable as it would reduce our dependence on oil using existing technology. Watch the interview now for a new view of nuclear.

The sun has long fascinated scientists. It’s immense power keeps the globe alive and as long as there is a planet earth there will be solar energy.

It’s permanence would therefore seem to make solar energy an ideal source of power in the midst of the ongoing energy crisis. However, converting the sun’s heat into useable energy – specifically electricity – has so far only proved possible on a small scale, via solar panels and related technologies.

This month Comment Visions meets a man who believes that a relatively new technology called solar concentration could provide an alternative to fossil fuels. Indeed, not just an alternative to fossil fuels; solar concentration - correctly applied - could provide 100% of the planet’s energy needs in the future, he argues.

Dr Eduardo Zarza Moya has been studying solar energy for more than 20 years and in this interview he delineates the technology involved in solar concentration and its potential. Using large scale mirrors to harness solar radiation in order to produce steam, which then drives electricity turbines, solar concentration is a clean process reliant on the sort of solar radiation apparent in the hottest parts of the planet. Dr Moya is currently involved in a project to build a solar energy plant in North Africa and while he admits transmitting the electricity produced is currently prohibitively expensive he remains positive about the future.

100% of the world’s energy needs from solar plants that cover just 1% of the world’s desert is the headline grabbing statistic, but Dr Moya admits that these are early days for the technology and that it is ‘a baby’. Given a time frame of 50 years and the relevant investment and political backing solar concentration could prove a real and viable energy solution, as he details in this fascinating interview.

The philosophical and political quest for peace between nation states dates back as far as Immanuel Kant’s hugely influential 1795 essay Perpetual Peace. However, over the last two centuries dramatically destructive wars have again and again undermined the Kantian ideal.

Throughout that time historians and political scientists have attempted to delineate what causes conflict and one recurrent theme is that conflict stems from international disputes over access to and control of resources.

With one of the planet’s most important resources – fossil fuels – increasingly scarce, this month’s Comment Visions talks to an expert on the history of armed conflict and asks whether the energy crisis threatens global security.

Dr Stein Tonnesson is Director of the International Peace Research Institute in Oslo, Norway. A historian whose PhD research focused on the causes of the 1945 Vietnamese revolution, he sees the increasing scarcity of fossil fuels as a potential catalyst of insecurity in the global arena. Warning that nations pursuing narrow national solutions to the crisis based on their own self interest will ‘envenomate the international climate’ he is nevertheless hopeful that co-operation at a global level is possible.

Citing this year’s Copenhagen summit as a crucial starting point for this co-ordinated approach to the security dimension of the energy crisis, Dr Tonnesson provides a fascinating insight into how global needs must take priority over national interests and warns that unless that happens armed conflict is possible.

In this months's Comment Visions, we discuss the hot topic of whether biofuels are an ecologically-sound solution to the world's increasing energy needs, or a potentially disastrous cause of deforestation and food shortages.

Supporters of biofuels say that they are preferable to fossil fuels because only the CO2 absorbed by the plants is released back into the atmosphere, making them less harmful, and many governments are putting a lot of money and resources into developing biofuel production.

However, there is concern that this is leading to more forests being cleared to make room for agriculture, as well as farmers using fields for producing biofuel crops rather than food, which could have a devastating impact in the Third World.

Dr Jeremy Woods, Lecturer in Biofuels at Imperial College London, believes that there are many challenges facing the world when it comes to energy in years to come, and also that biofuels will be a major factor in dealing with them, if it is managed properly.

Can bioethanol and biodiesel power the world of the future? Comment Visions meets Dr Woods at the British Sugar factory in Wissington, Norfolk, to find out.

Every hour of every day CO2 is being pumped into the earth’s atmosphere. A consequence of heavy industry that is integral to developed economies, CO2 emissions are one of the pre-eminent political and economic issues world leaders have been grappling with in the sphere of environmental policy.

Reducing CO2 has been the focus of much debate, however, some level of CO2 will always be produced by industry. With climate scientists clear on the effect of too much Carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, this month’s Comment Visions talks to someone with a different approach to the issue.

Dr Erik Lindeberg thinks that where CO2 is concerned, the answer can be found by going underground. In northern Norway he and his team of researchers are developing ground breaking new technology to capture CO2 and store it within the earth, using the planet’s natural underground reservoirs.

This type of carbon capture and storage is at the cutting edge of new scientific approaches to climate change and , to date, has only been trialled on a small scale. However, Dr Lindeberg believes that the large scale application of the technology he’s working on could reduce CO2 emissions at source by 80%.

With so much at stake, this month’s Comment Visions looks at a man whose vision could revolutionise our environment.

Over the past 10 months Comment Visions has travelled the globe to dissect, debate and seek solutions to the energy crisis. From the planet’s poles to the searing heat of equator we’ve looked at how humans are researching, adapting and confronting the changing nature of our earth through a series of interviews with leading experts in myriad fields.

This month’s Comment Visions looks forward by looking back, reviewing the Comment Visions interviews of the past year to put the individual episodes in context. A journey that began by travelling to Oslo, Norway to speak to Dr. Olav Orheim, a world expert on climate change, also saw us talking to pioneering scientists who suggested ways in which developments in robotics, space exploration and biotechnology could open up new frontiers in our approach to the energy crisis, as well as talking to business leaders about the need for responsive action.

From harnessing photosynthesis to colonising Titan, from solar-powered air conditioning to energy-saving robots, this month’s Comment Visions brings together the series of disparate, brilliant and inspiring interviews about the future of our planet.

In this month’s Comment Visions we journey to the cutting edge of science to discover how a greater understanding of what makes cells work could help the future of our planet.

Professor Miroslav Radman is an internationally-renowned scientist whose research has developed our understanding of genetics and molecular biology. An expert on evolutionary biotechnology, his current research examines what we can learn from the way different cells behave in nature.

Why, he wonders, do some cells display extraordinary robustness while others cannot sustain themselves? Do the ways these cells regenerate themselves hold secrets to very nature of life itself?

Comment Visions travels to Paris to meet with Professor Radman and discuss his groundbreaking research and its potential applications. In a fascinating and wide-ranging discussion he talks about the way in which understanding and analysing processes in nature can enable us to adapt and apply them to our needs. Can understanding the smallest building blocks of life bring us closer to solving the greatest problems of our time?

This month Comment Visions gets right to the heart of the climate change debate by getting a long-term weather forecast from Professor Nigel Arnell, one of the world’s leading experts on climatic patterns. Professor Arnell heads the Walker Institute for Climate System research at the University of Reading. In this programme he discusses the planet’s changing weather patterns - rising temperatures, altered rainfall patterns - and looks at the prospects for the future. By comparing data from the past Professor Arnell argues that we can make some tentative predictions about the future and that the increase in energy around the surface of the earth - a consequence of greenhouse gases - is something that needs a response.

Predicting the future of the planet is usually the domain of Hollywood science fiction movies. This month’s Comment Visions takes the debate over the future of planet out of the hands of screenwriters and into the realm of scientific fact by interviewing Didier Sornette, a French scientist who researches complex systems, modelling how they evolve and develop to predict the future. With global shortages of fossil fuels, economic uncertainty and an ever expanding population, it is a case of present imperfect, future unknown as we confront the energy debate; yet differing opinions over what the forthcoming decades hold for the planet can serve to immobilise the search for solutions. Didier Sornette talks about how he thinks people will respond to these challenges, how the search for solutions will be forced upon humans by the scarcity of resources and the likely ways in which life on earth will look. By 2050 an increased population will encounter fuel and water shortages. Professor Sornette looks at three possible scenarios for the global response to these problems and predicts that future scientific research could create solutions we cannot yet imagine.

They were touted as the environmentally-sound and sustainable solution to fossil fuels, but in recent years biofuels have become one of the most controversial topics in the broader debate over the planet's energy needs.

As some studies point to biofuels as the cause of rising global food prices and US Presidential hopeful Barack Obama's support for the biofuel industry is called into question by his own policy adviser, this month's Comment Visions seeks an expert opinion on the biofuels debate.

Professor José Esquinas-Alcázar is a Spanish scientist specialising in biodiversity. With background in plant genetics he has been a champion of policies promoting genetic diversity. As the cost and effects of the increase in biofuel production continues to make headlines and demand research, Euronews talks to Professor Esquinas about global interdependence, the need to protect against overreliance on certain crops and the future of the planet's delicate ecological balance.

Solutions to the energy crisis will come from all sectors of science and technology. This month’s Comment Visions looks at one of the most fascinating and futuristic areas of research; robotics.

Stefano Stramigioli is professor of the chair of Advanced Robotics at the University of Twente, in the Netherlands. Over the past decade he has been researching intelligent machines and their practical applications. Advanced robotics, he believes, can reap positive benefits for societies as the automation of tasks by increasingly intelligent machines grows more widespread.

The PC revolutionised technology in the late 20th century and Professor Stramigioli believes robots can make the same sort of impact on the technological landscape in the early 21st century.

A new age of robotics is coming as the next generation of machines develop from research projects into public initiatives and in this Comment Visions we ask Professor Stramigioli how he thinks this age will look. What are the practical applications of advanced robotics in a changing world and what role can robotics play in challenging the energy crisis?

June Visions Topic Overview

There is little doubt among experts and observers that the world’s resources are stretched and will continue to be depleted in decades to come. It is the best solution to this resource shortage that animates the debate in international society. How to keep the globe going in the face of resource shortages is a question that encompasses issues of energy, population, migration, and technology.

But what if the answers to the problems our planet is encountering do not lie on the planet at all? This month’s Comment Visions talks to Dr Athena Coustenis, an Astrophysicist who specialises in studying planetary atmospheres and is an international authority on Titan, the moon of Saturn that has long fascinated scientists due to its environmental similarities to Earth.

Dr Coustensis looks at what role the solar system and the planets beyond it could play in alleviating the earth resource shortage. In a fascinating interview that provides a fresh angle on questions of energy and overpopulation, she also predicts that these planets could lessen the demand on land across the globe as human colonisation of the solar system becomes a technological possibility.

May Visions Topic Overview

Renewable energy has been both praised and derided as an alternative source of power over the past two decades. To its detractors it is inefficient, unreliable and economically unsound. To its advocates it is free, clean, and unlimited in its potential. With global reliance on dwindling oil reserves an international political priority, attention continues to focus on renewable energy and its applications.

This month’s Comment Visions examines the developments in renewable energy by talking to a man whose work harnesses the power of the sun to produce cooling technology. Dr Ahmet Lokurlu is a Turkish engineer and scientist whose company produces air conditioning systems run by solar power. Generating energy from the sun and turning it into cold air in countries where fuel-hungry air conditioning accounts for more than 40% of totally energy use vividly demonstrates the innovative solutions renewable sources can provide.

The 2007 Road Map for Renewable Energy agreed by EU member states set the target of 20% of energy to be provided by renewable sources by 2020, highlighting the importance of the issue within the broader debate over energy challenges. As Dr Lokurlu’s work demonstrates it is technological development rather than political will, which will set the course for renewable energy in the future. This interview takes a fascinating look at this development and the role innovation can play in changing how we power the planet.

Sustainable Development and its possibilities, challenges and demands, has been on the agenda of the international business community for the past two decades. Since 1995, the World Business Council on Sustainable Development - a 200-member coalition of major businesses - has taken the lead in putting the business case for sustainable development.

This month’s Comment Visions talks to the Council’s President, Bjorn Stigson. Formerly a business executive in his native Sweden, Bjorn has spent the last decade based in Geneva bringing CEO’s of some of the world’s leading companies together to formulate and advocate the business response to the challenges of sustainable development.

With the WBCSD at the forefront of the myriad debates over sustainable development and the ways in which business, government and civil society must operate to meet the sustainability needs of the international community, this interview offers a fascinating insight into the work being undertaken by in every continent by companies committed to the WBCSD’s objectives.

With the dynamics, the consequences and the solutions regarding climate change subject to fierce ongoing debate, this month's Comment Visions gets an expert's perspective on the issues.

An international authority on the polar regions and a distinguished glaciologist and climatologist, Dr. Olav Orheim has been researching the polar regions for more than 30 years. He has visited the Arctic 50 times and made 18 field trips to the Antarctic. Dr. Orheim has seen up close the effects of climate change, having spent over two decades as the Director of Research at Norway's Polar Research Institute. He was made a Knight of the Order of St. Olaf in 2007 for his services to polar research.

In this wide-ranging interview Dr Orheim discusses the issues at the heart of the debate over climate change, addressing misunderstanding over the nature of global warming, the role of carbon emissions, and the human challenges posed by these changes to our planet.

With the future extent of climate change as yet unknown the search for political and practical solutions remains vital and Olaf Orheim looks at what can be done to engage with the problem.