Financing the Clean Energy Future: Panel from 2014 Investor Summit on Climate Risk

At the United Nations last week a panel of financial experts discussed the keys to quadrupling annual global investment in clean energy by 2030. The panel included my colleague Mark Fulton, who served as Editor of the new Ceres report – “Investing in the Clean Trillion: Closing the Clean Energy Investment Gap” – on which I had the privilege to serve as Lead Analyst. A full list of panelists is below; check out their thoughtful and provocative ideas on how to link capital markets to clean energy.

Watch the panel at the link below (to get to the start of the panel, fast-forward this video to 1:55, or an hour and fifty-five minutes in):

https://link.brightcove.com/services/player/bcpid1722935254001?bctid=3059096647001&autoStart=false&secureConnections=true&width=480&height=270

– Mark Fulton, Senior Fellow, Ceres; Founding Partner, Energy Transition Advisors
– Jack Ehnes, CEO, California State Teachers’ Retirement System (CalSTRS) (moderator)
– Lisa Carnoy, Head of Global Capital Markets, Bank of America Merrill Lynch
– Michael Liebreich, CEO, Bloomberg New Energy Finance

How many financial leaders does it take to quadruple investment in clean energy? – “Clean Trillion” report released at UN summit

What do Bob Rubin, Tom Steyer, Christiana Figueres, Richard Trumpka, and the NYS/NYC Comptrollers have in common?  They and 500 other global financial leaders were all at the United Nations last week for the release of a new Ceres report –  Investing in the Clean Trillion: Closing The Clean Energy Investment Gap – on which I had the privilege to serve as Lead Analyst (with my former Deutsche Bank colleague Mark Fulton as Lead Editor).

The report provides 10 recommendations for investors, companies and policymakers to increase annual global investment in clean energy to at least $1 trillion by 2030 – a roughly four-fold jump from 2012-13 levels.  Such an increase is the bare minimum necessary to limit future global temperature to two degrees Celsius (2 °C) above pre-industrial levels and avert the worst impacts of climate change.

ImageA list of the report’s recommendations are below, and you can read the full report (or much shorter executive summary) here.

Mobilize Investor Action to Scale Up Clean Energy Investment
1. Develop capacity to boost clean energy investments and consider a goal such as 5% portfolio-wide clean energy investments
2. Elevate scrutiny of fossil fuel companies’ potential carbon asset risk exposure
3. Engage portfolio companies on the business case for energy efficiency and renewable energy sourcing, as well as on financing vehicles to support such efforts
4. Support efforts to standardize and quantify clean energy investment data and products to improve market transparency

Promote Green Banking and Debt Capital Markets
5. Encourage “green banking” to maximize private capital flows into clean energy
6. Support issuances of asset-backed securities to expand debt financing for clean energy projects
7. Support development bank finance and technical assistance for emerging economies

Reform Climate, Energy and Financial Policies
8. Support regulatory reforms to electric utility business models to accelerate deployment of clean energy sources and technologies
9. Support government policies that result in a strong price on carbon pollution from fossil fuels and phase out fossil fuel subsidies
10. Support policies to de-risk deployment of clean energy sources and technologies

Megawords, not Megawatts: Introducing my New Monthly Podcast

This month I will begin podcasting conversations with leading professionals in energy, climate, and sustainability (tentative title for the series: Power Talk).  My aim is for Charlie Rose-style interviews that offer lively and informed discussion of key issues.   Unlike Charlie Rose, however, I hope to open up the conversation to include anyone eager to participate via phone, email, blog comment, or Twitter.

ImageMy first guest will be Eric Maltzer, formerly of the U.S. State Department’s Office of Global Change (i.e., America’s international climate negotiations team).  From 2005-2009 Eric served as a clean energy negotiator for this 20-person team and advised U.S. diplomats and foreign counterparts on energy and climate issues.  He also managed the U.S.-China climate portfolio through the EcoPartnerships forum and other initiatives.  Eric and I will be discussing the outlook for UN climate negotiations, the political landscape for climate policy in the US, and where China is headed on energy and climate issues.

Please share your questions for Eric via comments to this post, emails to Reid.Capalino@gmail.com, or tweets to @RCapalino.  Details to come on the exact broadcast date.  We look forward to hearing from you!

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Eric Maltzer, currently an MBA student at MIT’s Sloan School of Management, was until August a Foreign Affairs Officer in the Office of Global Change (i.e., America’s international climate negotiations team) at the State Department. In this role, he served as a clean energy negotiator for the 20-person team and an expert resource on energy and climate change for U.S. diplomats and foreign counterparts.  Eric also managed the U.S.-China climate portfolio and the sub-national engagement portfolio in that office from 2010-2013.  Before joining the State Department, Eric was an environmental strategist in the Boston office of Esty Environmental Partners. Eric has a Master’s in Public Policy (M.P.P.) from Harvard’s John F. Kennedy School of Government and a B.A. from Yale University.