The former chief executive of BP was delivering the latest Corporate Wisdom lecture at Leeds University Business School in front of academics, students and many of the region's leading business figures.

Lord Browne, now managing director and managing partner (europe) of private equity firm Riverstone Holdings, said the current situation represented "the most significant change seen in my career".

He added: "I am struck by the degree of uncertainty and complexity we have today."

Lord Browne's lecture, followed by a question and answer session, covered the subject of Energy and Change.

He said the world was likely to see a peak in demand for oil before a peak in supply and argued that the world's energy mix would become increasingly diversified over time.

He said biofuels were likely to play a very important role in the future energy mix and nuclear energy too was very important.

"We should have more of it," he added. "we need to take away the dogma and look at the economics."

He said carbon pricing would become a core economic concern for business.

Businesses should start planning for carbon charging today - not tomorrow - he argued, adding that carbon pricing was "as much an opportunity as a threat".

Lord Browne, who was voted Most Admired Chief Executive by Management Today from 1999-2002, was knighted in 1998 and made a life peer in 2001.
He is also president of the Royal Academy of Engineering and a Fellow of the Royal Society.

He was welcomed to Leeds by Professor Peter Moizer, Dean of Leeds University's Business School, and was thanked by John Nickell-Lean, partner at event sponsor, recruitment organisation Whitehead Mann.

The event was also backed by Leeds-based regional development agency Yorkshire Forward and the city's destination marketing agency, Marketing Leeds.