Jeremy Leggett

Academic and executive

He was born in 1954 and grew up by the coast in southern England, where he developed a hobby of collecting rocks and fossils. It remained an interest, which eventually led him to take a DPhil in geology at Oxford. That was in turn followed by an appointment in 1978 as a lecturer at the Royal School of Mines, which gave him the chance to do fieldwork in various remote places, including Baluchistan. Political interests grew, and he started campaigning on climate change and other issues, leaving the university to join Greenpeace in 1989. He read an article on Peak Oil in the Scientific American and his geological background led him to evaluate the issue in depth, becoming more and more convinced that indeed the world faced major changes. That led him to write two important books on the topic. He came to realise the need for new energy sources to replace petroleum, and formed Solar Century, which has become a leading solar energy company in Britain. He has also helped form a task-force with other influential executives to advise the British Government and to press for new energy policy initiatives.

I know we have the clean-energy technologies and strategies for running a world without oil, and indeed without any fossil fuels for that matter.