Partner News | Connect4Climate

World Bank Group’s Connect4Climate in Cannes doc showcase

Representatives from World Bank Group’s global climate communications and partnership program Connect4Climate are in Cannes supporting the in-production documentary Great Green Wall.

Jared P. Scott directs and Fernando Meirelles serves as executive producer on the film, which is also receiving support from the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification.

The documentary tells the epic story of one of the planet’s most ambitious endeavours at the edge of the Sahara Desert, aiming to spread awareness about and transform the lives of millions affected by the degraded landscapes. Great Green Wall features Inna Modja, a renowned Malian singer and activist.

[video:https://vimeo.com/268672668]

Connect4Climate’s Film4Climate initiative has presented films in Cannes on Saturday and Monday at the Doc Corner in support of the Global Youth Climate Movement. Slater Jewell-Kemker’s Youth Unstoppable tells the story of Jewell-Kemker’s involvement with the youth climate movement. Scythia Film’s Daniel Bekerman and Wendy Jewell produced, with support from Film4Climate. Adrian Grenier is executive producer.

“Recognising the impact that the film industry can have in particular on younger generations and the power of emotional stories and images, Film4Climate’s intention is to build a global network within the film industry to encourage climate action, environmental protection and social equity. We are pleased to continue supporting the powerful stories of young filmmakers and connecting them with renowned filmmakers to help maximise the medium’s ability to influence behaviour.”

Giulia Braga, Connect4Climate Program Manager

Banner and thumbnail photo credit to Cannes Film Festival

Four things we learned about electric vehicles at the DS Virgin Racing Innovation Summit

Following on from its previous successful thought leadership events, including its high profile New York summit, DS Virgin Racing used the recent Formula E Paris E-Prix to host another of its Race Against Climate Change Innovation Summits. And being the home of the Paris Climate Accord, there hardly seemed a more suitable location.

This year’s panellists included the likes of the renowned Christiana Figueres, the former UN Executive Secretary, Yves Bonnefont, CEO of the DS Brand, Shaun Kingsbury, former CEO of the UK Green Investment Bank, and Lei Zhang – Founder and CEO of digital energy company Envision.

Photo credit: DS Virgin Racing

Of course, being based around a Formula E event, of key discussion was the role of electric vehicles in helping us to keep global temperatures below 2°C – the figure widely regarded necessary to avoid the most serious effects of global warming. So what were the key points to come out of the discussions? Here’s our recap…

1 – Electric vehicles reduce emissions right now…

People might be put off buying an electric vehicle at the moment because the electricity that they’re using to charge the vehicle isn’t coming from a renewable source, so they assume that the emissions are just as bad. However, Sylvain Filippi, Chief Technology Officer at DS Virgin Racing, set us all straight on that.

“Even with current energy grids, electric vehicles will reduce emissions. And it’s only going to get better!”

Sylvain Filippi, Chief Technology Officer at DS Virgin Racing

He explained that Formula E is all about “testing and validating the technology on the racetrack” to be able to apply that to personal vehicles and move them to the road so that everyone can benefit.

2 – Electric vehicles are more than golf buggies…

It’s easy to fall into the trap of thinking that electric vehicles lack the power of their petrol or diesel counterparts but that’s simply not true. In fact, according to Yves Bonnefont, electric vehicles are the most accelerating vehicles you can make. Plus, there’s no vibration in them so they’re more enjoyable to drive.

“Once people have started to drive electric, they will never come back to internal combustion engines.”

Yves Bonnefont, CEO, DS Brand

Christiana Figueres likened it to other forms of old technology:

“It’s the equivalent of saying once you have a mobile would you ever want to go back to your landline? It’s the same logic. Once you’re in the future you certainly never want to go to the past.”

Christiana Figueres, Former UNFCCC Executive Secretary

3 – Switching to electric vehicles will have a significant impact…

Most people accept that electric vehicles are the future of the motoring industry and know that switching to them will help to reduce the negative impacts of climate change. But just what impact would it have if we all stopped driving petrol and diesel cars tomorrow?

Last month, when the streets of London were shut for one day for the Virgin Money London Marathon, we saw more than an 80 per cent drop in pollution in the city.

“That’s what we would see if everyone drove electric vehicles.”

Shaun Kingsbury, UK Green Investment Bank

4 – Renewable energy sources are still important…

While it would be an easy solution to adopt electric vehicles and benefit from the impact that they will bring without switching to renewable energy sources, it’s still important to explore alternative sources of power. “Renewable energy is not about just being a commodity, it’s about technology,” sais Lei Zhang. “And with technology, and every year that technology improves, and with it the cost of renewable energy comes down.”

These are the two races against climate change that the world is facing, according to the panel of experts: e-mobility and renewable energy. Indeed, Christiana Figueres adds: “Both of them need to complement each other and dovetail.”

But, as Shaun Kingsbury said, “we can’t solve this alone, that’s the key thing – it’s about bringing people together who can.”

Banner and thumbnail photo credit to DS-Virgin Racing

Connect4Climate joins DS Virgin's Race Against Climate Change

DS Virgin Racing has further strengthened its support for accelerated climate action by joining forces with Connect4Climate around its Race Against Climate Change (RACC) initiative.

Launched at the start of the season in conjunction with Sir Richard Branson, the Virgin Group and the Rocky Mountain Institute, the aim of RACC is to accelerate the energy transition, promote ambitious climate action, and help the world achieve the goals of the Paris Climate Accord.

The programme already boasts a number of key experts including Professor Michael Mann and Actor & Director Fisher Stevens, and will now include Connect4Climate from the Paris race onwards.

Sam Bird is Racing Against Climate Change at Formula E

Connect4Climate is a global partnership programme launched by the World Bank Group and the Italian Ministry of Environment, Land and Sea, together with the German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development. Its aim is to take on climate change by supporting ambitious leadership, promoting transformative solutions and empowering collective action.

“We are delighted to be joining forces with Connect4Climate to help strengthen our Race Against Climate Change initiative. By working together, it will allow us to reach an even wider platform, helping us raise even more awareness of climate change issues and to a new audience. Climate action and sustainability remains key to the DS Virgin Racing team and its ‘Purpose’, and we look forward to this exciting new relationship.”

Alex Tai, DS Virgin Racing Team Principal

“We are at a crucial time in our history, the world has come together to address climate change with the Paris Agreement, and to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals, but we need to accelerate the implementation of climate solutions. Connect4Climate is excited to support the DS Virgin Racing team to ensure that electric racing and its audience help build a low-carbon and resilient future.”

Max Thabiso Edkins, Climate Change Expert, Connect4Climate

The knowledge partnership allows for collaborative engagement to inspire climate action. Connect4Climate will support the team’s Innovation Summit and joint communications activities will be identified going forward.

The World Bank Group - Together We All Prosper

Inspiring Climate Ambition through the Art of Storytelling

Governments meet in Bonn to step up Climate Action critical to the implementation of Paris Agreement

Governments are meeting for the next round of UN climate change negotiations from 30 April to 10 May to further develop the guidelines for implementing the landmark 2015 Paris Climate Change Agreement.

This will allow the agreement to become operational. The guidelines, or operating manual, are needed to unlock practical actions to realize the full potential of the agreement.

The final decisions are to be taken at the UN Climate Change Conference (COP24) in Poland at the end of this year.

Finalizing the Paris Agreement guidelines is also necessary to assess whether the world is on track to achieve the agreement’s goals: to limit the global temperature increase to well below 2°C, while pursuing efforts to limit it to 1.5°C.

“To reach success at COP24, it is essential that nations begin working towards draft negotiating texts at the May meeting. This will provide a solid foundation for work in the second half of 2018 and help them to deliver a strong result.”

Patricia Espinosa, Executive Secretary of UN Climate Change

At the UN Climate Change Conference (COP23) held last November under the leadership of Fiji, nations agreed to accelerate and complete their work to put in place the guidelines – officially termed the Paris Agreement Work Programme (PAWP) – at COP24 in Katowice, Poland in December.

The Talanoa Dialogue

Another important objective of the May session is holding the ‘Talanoa Dialogue’. This dialogue will facilitate the engagement of countries and a range of stakeholders in a vital international conversation around ambition now and in the future.

The Fiji-led Talanoa Dialogue is facilitated by the UN Climate Change secretariat and will benefit from the presence of high-level officials from Fiji, including the Prime Minister, who is the President of COP23.

Inspiring Climate Ambition through the Art of Storytelling

The consultative dialogue will check progress, reaffirm the goals of the Paris Agreement and aim to find solutions to how countries can increase their ambition now and in the next round of their national climate action plans, officially termed ‘Nationally Determined Contributions’ (NDCs).

As per tradition in the Pacific region, the goal of a ‘talanoa’ is to share stories and to find solutions for the common good. Similarly, in the context of the international climate change process, the Talanoa Dialogue will invite participants to share stories to find solutions for the global common good.

“2017 witnessed many extreme weather events and disasters that caused suffering for millions of people around the world. The consequences of climate change impacts are already being felt, particularly by the most vulnerable communities,” said UN Climate Chief Ms. Espinosa.

“The Talanoa Dialogue is a key opportunity for all stakeholders to come together and share stories on how we can significantly step up climate action to prevent even greater human suffering in the future. I encourage widespread participation in the Dialogue,” she stated.

This first phase of the Fiji-led Dialogue will write history when countries and non-Party stakeholders including cities, businesses, investors and regions engage in interactive story-telling around current and future ambition for the first time on 6 May.

The output from these story-telling conversations will feed into the Talanoa Dialogue’s political phase at COP24. The political phase will bring together Ministers and high-level government officials for conversations with a view to generating political momentum.

Ambition before 2020

Throughout 2018, countries will also focus on how they can scale up their climate ambition and implementation in the pre-2020 period. All countries share the view that climate action prior to 2020 is essential. COP24 will hold an event to take stock of the pre-2020 efforts.

Earlier this year, Prime Minister Frank Bainimarama of Fiji, President of COP23, and Ms Espinosa urged countries that are yet to do so to ratify the amendment containing the second commitment period of the Kyoto Protocol. The Doha amendment sets out emission reduction commitments for the period 2012-2020 for many developed countries. The amendment has been ratified by 111 countries and will enter into force after it is ratified by just over 30 more.

Concerned about the need to accelerate action, Ms Espinosa said, “I strongly urge developed countries to make progress towards mobilizing the USD 100 billion that they have pledged to provide per year by 2020. Many developing countries desperately need this support in order to make their contribution to climate action.”

Further highlights

On 29 April, a Action for Climate Empowerment (ACE) Youth Forum with people from around the world will take place. Initiated by Fiji at COP23 last year, the output from the forum will be presented to the negotiations of the operating manual for the Paris Agreement in an effort to strengthen education, awareness and public outreach under the agreement.

On 1 May, the newly-established local communities and indigenous peoples’ platform will hold a workshop on how the tool can best boost local and indigenous contributions to climate action.

On 4 May, a number of developing countries will showcase their climate actions in a new round of the so-called ‘facilitative sharing of views’ (FSV). Both achievements and unique challenges in mitigation action to date will be presented.

On 7 and 8 May, a workshop will take place to help identify how to scale up climate finance for mitigation and adaptation in the longer-term

Throughout the two-week meeting, a series of gender-related events, including a gender dialogue on 5 May, have been scheduled to boost gender-responsive climate policy and to take forward the landmark 2017 Gender Action Plan.

Banner and thumbnail photo credit to UNFCCC

An economic case for protecting the planet

Economist Naoko Ishii, CEO, Global Environment Facility (GEF), is on a mission to protect the planet's shared resources, known as the global commons, that are vital for our survival.

"Our economies are no longer local. When we moved away from being local, we started to lose our connection to the commons. We carried economic objectives, goals, and systems beyond the local, but we did not carry the notion of taking care of the commons," Naoko Ishhi.

"Our mistake was to assume that the capacity of the earth for self-repair had no limits. It does have limits. The message from the science is very clear: we humans have become an overwhelming force to determine the future living conditions on earth, and what’s more, we are running out of time. If we don’t act on them, we will be losing the global commons. It’s only our generation who are able to preserve it - preserve the commons as we know them. Now is the time we start managing the global commons as our parents or our grandparents managed their local commons," Ishii stated.

Naoko Ishii added: "We all share one planet in common. We breathe the same air, we drink the same water, we depend on the same oceans, forests, and biodiversity. There is no space left on earth for egoism. The global commons must be kept within their safe operating space, and we can only do it together."

In an eye-opening talk about the wellness of the planet, Ishii outlines four economic systems we need to change to safeguard the global commons, making the case for a new kind of social contract with the earth.

2018 Sustainable Energy for All Forum - Day 2 Wrap-up

The second day of the Sustainable Energy for All Forum in Lisbon was about speed and scale of solutions. The urgency for bigger, bolder momentum on the SDG7 goals as well as backing words with movement and concrete action to leave no one behind.

“You say you’re doing okay with the richest of the poor. What are you doing with the poorest of the poor?” asked Greta Bull, CEO of the Consultative Group to Assist the Poor (CGAP), in a question that captured an important tone for the day.

The Forum’s closing day, with over 800 attendees present, did not disappoint. On a wide range of issues – energy access finance, bringing clean energy to refugee camps, clean cooking – government leaders, companies, NGOs, and financiers stepped up with new collaborations and commitments to achieve faster results.

And, with the Forum spurring a whole host of follow-up working meetings taking place in locations across Lisbon, more progress can be expected.

“We’ve got a theme here. Just do it."

Rachel Kyte, Chief Executive Officer

and Special Representative of the UN Secretary-General for Sustainable Energy for All

“I got the passion. I’m going back to Ghana with that passion,” added the Hon. Hajia Alima Mahama, Ghana’s Minister for Local Government and Rural Development.

At the close of the Forum, Kyte and Mahama were joined on the stage by dozens of leaders from government, business, academia, civil society and other groups who over the two days had made new action pledges.

The closing ceremony. Photo credits: Daniel Pinto Lopes / Connect4Climate

Among the day’s highlights

Sustainable Energy in Humanitarian Settings

With displaced populations increasing worldwide, the urgency for providing clean energy and clean cooking solutions at refugee camps and other humanitarian settings is growing. “They come, and they are welcome, but we need to provide for them,” said the Hon. Simon D’Ujanga, Uganda’s Minister of the State of Energy, which has 1.5 million refugees, most of whom rely on local firewood for cooking.

In a packed session, government leaders, UN officials, foundations and civil society pledged to work together to accelerate gains to bring clean, affordable energy to humanitarian settings. Everyone agreed that replicating success stories, such as solar plants that are now powering two refugee camps in Jordan, is imperative. “We’re still not being serious on this. What difference will you make between now and the end of the year and how can we hold ourselves accountable?” said Andrew Harper, director of the Division of Programme Support and Management at UNHCR, the UN refugee agency.

Spurring Energy Access Finance in Africa

More financing and different kinds of financing are critical for supporting and scaling projects and enterprises that are providing energy access in regions with the biggest gaps, particularly Sub-Saharan Africa. The European Union agree to boost spending on off-grid energy and last-mile electrification and off-grid. Provider Mobisol highlighted the significance of $30 million of local currency asset-backed financing.

Government Leadership

On day 1 left no doubt that governments, many of them in Africa, are stepping up on leadership in advancing strategies and policies that will accelerate SDG7 gains. “We now have a truly global leadership cohort of countries that have really ambitious plans and have set aggressive targets. We now have that with countries such as Bangladesh, Kenya and Rwanda,” Rachel Kyte said. Among the examples that emerged on day 1 there's Rwanda committed to reduce – from 83 percent to 42 percent – the percentage of its population cooking with traditional biomass fuels by 2024. Uganda and the Smart Communities Coalition agreed to work together to bring clean cooking and other sustainable energy solutions to the country’s growing refugee population. Somalia hosted a multi-stakeholder meeting in Lisbon to advance its efforts to run its economy on clean energy. Togo committed to 60 percent of new power connections by 2030, largely provided by the private sector.

Sustainable Energy for All Forum Lisbon - Leaving No One Behind

This year's Sustainable Energy for All Forum focused on leaving no one behind. Photo credits: Daniel Pinto Lopes / Connect4Climate

More announcements

During the Forum, the Shine campaign was officially launched with three-dozen groups from the faith and philanthropic sectors making commitments to mobilize financing for energy access efforts. Among others, those commitments included the Wallace Global Fund targeting one percent of its total investment portfolio to energy access efforts in Sub-Sahara Africa and the IKEA Foundation rolling out six new grants totaling over $40 million to support energy access work in Asia and Africa. SEforALL also signed a new Deliver Partnership with leading energy efficiency business, Danfoss. The partnership will focus on the Cooling for All initiative, the District Energy Systems Accelerator and work to continue action on energy efficiency that supports SDG7 goals. A new Middle East Hub was also announced by SEforALL and the Islamic Development Bank which will be hosted at ISDB Headquarters in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. The Hub will raise awareness at the national and regional level of the challenges, constraints, and opportunities available while achieving the three core objectives of SDG7.

Banner and thumbnail photo credits to Daniel Pinto Lopes / Connect4Climate

2018 Sustainable Energy for All Forum - Day 1 Wrap-up

More than 800 attendees gathered today at the fourth Sustainable for Energy for All Forum in Lisbon to chart the bold steps that are needed to accelerate progress on achieving Sustainable Development Goal 7 (SDG7) by 2030.

The opening day was a mix of data-driven reality about the challenge ahead and optimism that bigger, bolder gains are more imminent than ever. And, no doubt, attendees at the Forum – a mix of financiers, governments, business CEOs, civil society and community leaders – were the secret ingredient for making the transformative gains happen.

“You are the vanguard, the tipping point of the revolution.”

Rachel Kyte, Chief Executive Officer

and Special Representative of the UN Secretary-General for Sustainable Energy for All

Among the day’s key highlights

Taking Stock on SDG7 Progress: If Rwanda and Bangladesh can achieve exponential growth in off-grid renewables in just a few years, why can’t other countries in Africa and Asia? If Portugal can achieve 100 percent renewable energy, why can’t other advanced economies? This was the reaction to the Tracking SDG7: The Energy Progress Report released at the Forum’s opening session. While the data shows significant challenges in meeting 2030 goals, it also contained some bright spots on energy efficiency, energy access, and renewable energy.

Download the report

Among the positive trends: the primary energy intensity of the global economy improved at a faster 2.8% pace in 2015; for the first time in all regions of the world, electricity access grew faster than population growth; in Bangladesh and Mongolia, energy access gains were nearly 10 percent. Far more sobering was the report’s clean cooking access figures as well as slow progress in many Sub-Saharan African countries on all of the SDG7 objectives.

“Far more needs to be done to advance renewable and efficient energy in all sector. Let us invest in the future, not the past.”

UN Secretary-General António Guterres, in a video message to Forum attendees

So what will it take to get more countries on the right track? Supportive government policies and regulatory frameworks are critical – a point echoed by a half-dozen government ministers speaking about their gains on energy access, energy efficiency and clean cooking.

Rwanda’s government has an integrated electrification strategy emphasizing grid- and off-grid solutions. Remote, rural populations far removed from electric grids are a central focus of their strategy. “We want to make sure we connect the entire population,” said the Hon. Germaine Kamayirese, Rwanda’s Minister of State for Energy, Water, and Sanitation.

An inside look at the #SEforALLforum with Rachel Kyte

Getting Real on Clean Cooking

Static progress on access to clean cooking fuels and technologies was the most sobering trend by far in the SDG7 progress report. The clean cooking access deficit is still stuck at about 3 billion, with gains from 2014 to 2016 negligible gains and only 59 percent of the global population with access to clean cooking. “If we keep up this pace, we’ll only reach 73 percent by 2030. That’s unacceptable,” said Dr. Maria Neira, Director of Public Health and the Environment, at the World Health Organization.

No doubt, new, more collaborative strategies are needed, country by country. And all cooking fuels – whether biomass pellets, ethanol or LPG – need to be on the table as a scalable solution. “We need lots of solutions. There is no silver bullet,” Kyte said.

A case in point is Cameroon, which is pursuing an ambitious national strategy based primarily on LPG cookstoves. It has doubled its clean cooking numbers since 2006 and about 20 percent of the population is now using LPG stoves; by 2030, it hopes to be at 50 percent. Ghana is also pushing a national strategy based on sustainable biomass and LPG.

The international funding community also needs to step up in supporting countries with the biggest clean cooking access gaps. “There’s a massive opportunity to create big markets for clean cooking fuels,” Kyte said.

“Funding needs to be incredibly patient,” added Dymphna van der Lans, CEO of the Global Alliance for Clean Cookstoves. “This market is not off-grid solar. It needs to have a sense of humility.”

Simply put, Rachel Kyte noted, investing in clean cooking is investing in “smarter energy.”

“What I’m hearing again and again today is that we’re not just talking about energy as electrons,” Kyte said he her wrap-up remarks. “We’re looking at the health care benefits that will be achieved when we deliver reliable affordable energy. Energy that will help save children’s lives because they’re breathing cleaner air.”

Leveraging Women’s Role: Gender diversity and women’s empowerment in the SDG7 movement came up time and time again.

A new report produced by SEforALL and ENERGIA, Levers of Change, provides powerful evidence of how women are often not given an equal chance to take advantage of sustainable energy opportunities, such as traditional and mobile money financing that would enable them to acquire home solar systems or clean cooking solutions.

At an interactive lunch on gender inclusive investing, Calvert Impact Capital highlighted two key opportunities for enhancing women’s role: first, because women are more apt to live in energy poverty then men, targeting them in investment strategies will have a bigger impact; second, Calvert found its investments perform better when it uses a gender lens.

Banner photo credit to Kaia Rose / Connect4Climate

Thumbnail photo credit to Daniel Pinto Lopes / Connect4Climate

Tracking SDG7: The Energy Progress Report 2018

Tracking SDG7: The Energy Progress Report shows that while the world is not on track to meet the energy targets set for 2030 as part of the Sustainable Development Goals, real progress is being made in certain areas – particularly access to electricity in least developed countries, and energy efficiency.