“The NATO summit is a credibility summit, a real test of Europe’s commitment and will” – Dr Robin NIblett, Director, Chatham House

Robin Niblett told a briefing organised with the FPA at Chatham House that the forthcoming NATO summit in Wales was critical. In confronting Russia over Ukraine, Europe had to be in the lead; NATO ultimately was about protecting the rule of law and a free press, in other words "real democracy" - and President Putin was antithetical to both. 

Xenia Wickett, Project Director for the US Programme at Chatham House emphasised the importance of public diplomacy; NATO needed to be much better at fighting the propaganda war. It needed the support of the public, it needed quicker decision making, more effective joint planning and good, bespoke partnerships around the world. 

Both speakers agreed there would be no action plan laid out at the Summit for current conflicts in the Middle East. However they predicted a strong final statement about Ukraine, but President Putin needed to be given a way out without being humiliated and potentially, a commitment that Ukraine not join NATO.

More than 60 British and international journalists attended the briefing, chaired by FPA President, Paola Totaro.

Nothing has been achieved since the 90s to tackle climate change – Dieter Helm

The Professor of Energy Policy at Oxford Dieter Helm told FPA members there was no reason to expect any more decisive action on climate change at the UN conference in Paris next year.

Europe had exported CO2 emissions to China in the past few years by cutting manufacturing; globally, nothing had changed. Meanwhile, £100 billion was being invested across Europe in wind farms, which – along with solar panels – made precisely zero difference. Europe should invest just some of that money in research, a “European MIT”, and there were reasons for hope: solar energy could make a massive difference in the future as experts widened the light spectrum and found materials other than panels to apply solar energy. However, said Professor Helm, demand would not fall; energy would just be cheaper. Thanks to shale gas extraction or “fracking” the price of American gas was a quarter of that in Europe. For most of his career nobody had been much interested in energy as there had been massive excess supply; now, everybody cared. We didn’t have security of supply, we had less competitive and affordable energy, and emissions globally were still going up. The Uk was facing an energy crunch in the next 18 months and action was needed.