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07 September 2007
Partnerships Help U.S., Developing Nations Promote Clean Energy
International collaborations target clean fuels, access to energy services
Washington -- A growing number of international public-private partnerships is helping developing nations around the world adopt forward-looking climate policies that reduce greenhouse gas emissions and air pollution and improve citizens’ access to energy services.
In the United States, representatives from a range of agencies work with other governments, nongovernmental organizations and the private sector to transform energy production and consumption through projects that seek practical, targeted results.
One effort is the global Partnership for Clean Fuels and Vehicles, a 90-member public-private collaboration that began as an idea at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and formally launched during the World Summit for Sustainable Development in Johannesburg in 2002.
“The partners represent most of the world’s automobile manufacturers and oil companies, along with environmental groups, key international organizations and governments,” Jane Metcalfe, EPA’s coordinator for the partnership, told USINFO, “so all sectors are involved, including the private sector.”
CLEAN FUELS
Partnership funding sources are diverse. They include EPA, the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID); the U.N. Environment Programme (UNEP); countries such as Canada and the Netherlands; oil companies and international foundations.
UNEP helped launch the partnership. Its office in Nairobi, Kenya, coordinates partnership activities and programs and houses the group’s information clearinghouse.
Partnership goals are to eliminate lead from gasoline globally, reduce sulfur in diesel and gasoline fuels and introduce cleaner vehicle technologies.
After five years, Metcalfe said, “one of the biggest successes is that lead has been eliminated from gasoline in all 49 countries in sub-Saharan Africa,” reducing the exposure of more than 700 million people to the harmful effects of lead emissions.
About 20 countries still use leaded gasoline. The goal is to phase out lead in gasoline by 2008.
Sulfur in fuel is related directly to particulate emissions, which have adverse health effects, including cancer and cardiovascular and respiratory diseases.
The effort seeks to reduce sulfur in fuels to 50 parts sulfur or less per million parts fuel globally. The reductions in sulfur content must be accompanied by changes in vehicle technologies, Metcalfe said, to take advantage of the cleaner fuel.
These include adopting new vehicle emissions standards and cleaning up existing vehicles -- for example, retrofitting diesel vehicles with advanced emission-control technologies that reduce particulate matter emissions when combined with low-sulfur fuel.
GLOBAL VILLAGE
The Global Village Energy Partnership (GVEP) is a 10-year effort -- with funding from USAID and international donors such as UNDP and the World Bank -- to boost access to modern energy services in developing countries in a way that enhances economic and social development and reduces poverty.
After five years, GVEP has more than 1,500 public- and private-sector partners, and in 2006 transformed itself into a legal entity -- a U.K.-based charity with a board of trustees that has collected 3 million euros from the Netherlands, $8 million from the United Kingdom, and $30 million that represents the Russian commitment to energy access in Africa made at a conference of industrialized nations in 2006.
With the new partnership structure, Gordon Weynand, energy team leader in USAID’s Bureau for Economic Growth, Agriculture and Trade, told USINFO, “We are pulling resources together from different donors and getting much more private-sector involvement. We have some real forward progress.”
Weynand said the effort is using a private-sector approach -- working with small and medium-sized energy enterprises in rural areas of each country -- to “foster business growth and work with the communities to organize themselves to buy the services.”
In Brazil, for example, USAID works with UNDP and the Brazilian government, with funding from the World Bank, on a program called Lights for All, to reach out to people not connected to the energy grid. The goal is to give 12 million people access to energy services by 2010. In 2007, some 1.5 million already have been connected.
REN21
The Renewable Energy Policy Network for the 21st century (REN21) links governments, international institutions, nongovernmental organizations, industry associations and others to promote policies that increase the wise use of renewable energy in developing and industrial countries.
The United States is one of 13 countries on the steering committee, along with Brazil, Denmark, China, Germany, India, the United Kingdom, the United Arab Emirates, Uganda, South Africa, the Netherlands, Morocco and Italy.
REN21 was created at the International Conference for Renewable Energies Bonn 2004 in Germany, said Griffin Thompson, senior energy adviser in the State Department Bureau of Oceans and International Environmental and Scientific Affairs.
The network is funded mainly by the German government, with cost sharing by UNEP, which houses the secretariat in Paris.
Among the REN21 products is a global status report of renewable energy technology -- wind, solar, hydroelectricity, biomass, geothermal -- first published in 2005, with an update in 2006. Both reports were collaborative efforts involving more than 100 researchers.
A follow-up to the Bonn conference will be held in Washington in March 2008 and sponsored by the State Department. About 5,000 people are expected to attend -- 2,000 for a three-day ministerial-level meeting and 3,000 for a trade show. The Washington International Renewable Energy Conference 2008 will offer a global platform to advance the integration of renewable energy everywhere.
“It’s not just about targets and timetables for renewables,” Thompson said, “but how you drive down the cost of renewables. A lot of that is done by increased research and development that will make renewable energy technologies more efficient and therefore more cost effective.”
More information on the Washington International Renewable Energy Conference 2008 is available on a conference Web site.
Additional information on the Global Village Energy Partnership is available on that organization’s Web site.
More information on the Partnership for Clean Fuels and Vehicles is available on the UNEP Web site.
For more information on U.S. policy, see Climate Change and Clean Energy.
(USINFO is produced by the Bureau of International Information Programs, U.S. Department of State. Web site: http://usinfo.state.gov)
