Transatlantic Forum: “Technology and the Fight Against Climate Change”

The French-American Foundation hosted its Transatlantic Forum on “Technology and the Fight Against Climate Change” on Wednesday, April 11th. In an increasingly interconnected global environment, our members-only events assemble French and American leaders in business, politics, education, and culture who care about enriching the transatlantic relationship. Our dinner discussions provide the ideal backdrop for open exchanges on topics of mutual interests.

April’s salon dinner featured keynote speaker Eric Gernath, Chief Executive Officer of SUEZ North America. Mr. Gernath, who has experience working across the globe and who has been with SUEZ for over 27 years, opened the discussion by stating that: “Climate change is about creating positive momentum.  You need political will as an enabler.”

Our guest speaker engaged our members in a dynamic dialogue and shared multiple concrete examples to support his statements. He categorized companies by their commitment to tackling climate change through their operations, either directly or indirectly, and rated countries based on their respective efforts to combat the threat.  Northern European countries and the State of California are currently the best in class, China demonstrates improvement in regulatory implementation, but India remains questionable by its actions in the space. He concluded that the public sector has greater responsibility than the private sector in combating climate change and must take the lead.

Photos credit: Kari Bjorn www.karibjorn.com