In San Francisco on Thursday, U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) Secretary Ernest Moniz hosted energy leaders from around the world for the inaugural Mission Innovation (MI) Ministerial and the seventh Clean Energy Ministerial (CEM7).
The DOE says that, as the first major gathering of global energy ministers since last December’s Paris Agreement, the MI Ministerial and CEM7 represented a crucial step toward accelerating both the deployment of today’s clean energy technologies and innovation for the technologies of the future. Ministers committed to ambitious action on implementing policies and solutions to meet countries’ climate and clean energy goals.
Launched last year in Paris, MI is an effort to double public investment in clean energy research and development over five years. At the MI Ministerial, the 20 founding governments of MI welcomed the EU as a 21st member, and they all released their respective baseline investment and doubling plans.
Collectively, the MI partners committed to double nearly $15 billion per year in baseline funding for global public investment in clean energy research and development, reaching just under a combined total of $30 billion per year by 2021. According to a White House summary of Thursday’s events, that exceeds the original baseline funding estimate of $10 billion per year.
Furthermore, the White House says CEM7 hosted 21 countries, the EU, nearly 60 companies and organizations, and 10 subnational governments that made more than $1.5 billion in commitments to accelerate the deployment of clean energy and increase energy access – including toward three new campaigns to promote corporate sourcing of renewables, commercial and industrial energy efficiency, and advanced cooling technologies.
“CEM7 and MI are major driving forces for how the U.S. and global community can achieve the commitments made under the Paris Agreement,” says Secretary Moniz. “The outcome of these two meetings can play an important role in deploying clean energy technologies today and developing tomorrow’s solutions that will facilitate the world’s transition to a clean energy economy.”
In addition, the DOE has released “Federal Financing Programs for Clean Energy,” a resource guide to U.S. government programs that supports the development of clean energy projects in the U.S. and abroad. Featuring more than 30 programs from 10 agencies, the guide includes summaries and case studies of programs that the DOE says can benefit private-sector partners in finding capital for clean energy projects.
