Private cash and public initiative looks to be a winning template to help achieve Rio summit goals
New private-public partnerships have become a dominant part of what’s happening here in Rio. Indeed, they may become the conference’s legacy in that an extraordinary mobilisation is now underway to bring about concrete action backed by multimillion dollar commitments.
Where 20 years ago the Earth Summit put sustainability on the global agenda through the establishment of an institutional framework for environmental stewardship, this conference may well be set to deliver in an essential and necessary way – through the access to finance and technological know-how.
Energy access
A highlight among the partnerships so far has been Sustainable Energy for All (SE4ALL), an initiative launched by the UN secretary-general in September 2011. It had been in development for the previous five years through the leadership of co-chairs Charles Holliday, chairman of Bank of America, and Kandeh Yumkella, director-general of the UN Industrial and Development Organisation (UNIDO).
“There are business leaders from over 35 countries here and they are waiting in line to step up to projects,” said Holliday at an press conference in Rio.
Holliday cited as an example the commitment by Stat Oil to eliminate production flaring in Africa through a consortium of companies partnered together with the World Bank.
“If we can reduce flaring to zero in Africa alone, we can create 50% of all the power use in [the continent] today,” Holliday said.
Existing technology
It is a difficult task, but the technology is there. What’s been missing is the catalyst. “It will take public private partnership to bring it about,” Holliday added. “We need to make standard systems so people all around the world who want to invest in sustainable energy projects have a way to do that.”
Thus far, businesses and investors have committed over $50bn to achieve the initiative’s three objectives – ensuring universal access to modern energy services; doubling the global rate of improvement in energy efficiency; and doubling the share of renewable energy in the global energy mix.
Part of the new model is to negotiate and identify areas where concrete action can take place, said Yumkella, referring to the initiative’s “global action agenda,” a kind of roadmap identifying seven high-impact areas out of 30 which have already been developed. Eliminating gas flaring is one of these high-impact goals.
Transformative change
Yumkella said the aim is for both grid and off-grid, decentralised solutions ensuring green energy is not only accessible but affordable. He cited partnerships with over 100 NGO groups looking to deploy solutions at the local level, including social enterprise and microcredit financing.
“We didn’t want to develop a charity model,” Yumkella said. “This is about public private partnership. We’re not going to take a few solar panels back to a Sierra Leone village. We’re talking about transformative change.”