UN Secretary-General António Guterres’ Special Envoy on Climate Ambition and Solutions Michael Bloomberg announced a new commitment to help accelerate the transition to renewable energy in 15 developing countries across the world - Botswana, Cambodia, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Egypt, Ethiopia, Ghana, Madagascar, Morocco, Mexico, Philippines, Rwanda, Senegal, Tanzania, Thailand, and Uganda.
“Today, we’re expanding our clean energy work to 15 new countries. We’ll work with our partners on the ground to accelerate their transition away from fossil fuels and improve the health of their citizens and economies,” said the Special Envoy who earlier this year announced efforts to turbocharge clean energy transition in 10 other countries - Bangladesh, Brazil, Colombia, Kenya, Mozambique, Nigeria, Pakistan, South Africa, Turkey, and Vietnam.
The latest announcement, made at the UN Climate Action: Race to Zero and Resilience Forum which took place during the UN General Assembly high-level week in New York, comes as the Secretary-General held an Informal Leaders’ Roundtable on Climate Action with a group of diverse Heads of State and Government to urgently accelerate ambitions and actions as climate impacts continue to intensify across the world.
Recent months have seen historic floods in Pakistan, crippling heat waves throughout Asia and Europe, wildfires across the Americas, and droughts and food insecurity in the Horn of Africa region. Transition to renewable energy that will allow countries to end their addiction to fossil fuels - by far the largest contributor to climate change - remains one of the most critical solutions to the climate crisis.
According to the International Energy Agency, global renewable energy capacity broke a new record in 2021 with the addition of 295 gigawatts of power and is expected to reach 320 gigawatts in 2022 - an amount that is enough to meet Germany’s entire electricity demand, for example.
“Developing countries around the world need support to unlock their potential for clean, reliable energy generation,” said Damilola Ogunbiyi, the Special Representative of the UN Secretary-General for Sustainable Energy for All, referring to the abundant potential for solar, wind and other renewable energy capacity and a growing demand for sustainable power production in the 15 countries.
Shifting to renewables will not only reduce emissions, it will also create jobs, improve infrastructure, and provide accessible and affordable power. Latest estimates show that every dollar of investment in renewables creates three times more jobs than in the fossil fuel industry.
At the Race to Zero and Resilience Forum, the Special Envoy also launched the Bloomberg Countdown to COP27 - a 45-day long series of initiatives and commitments aimed at delivering on the Secretary-General’s call for urgent climate action leading into the UN Climate Change Conference (COP27) in Sharm El-Sheikh, Egypt, in November 2022.
“We need to ensure that COP27, in Sharm el-Sheikh, will truly be the place where important promises of the agreement are turned into concrete actions,” said Simon Stiell, the new Executive Secretary of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change. “Governments need to lead on cutting greenhouse gas emissions and building resilience to climate change, but they cannot do this alone. We need all of the private sector and civil society for effective climate action.”
Learn more about the different types of renewable energy and how they can power a safer future.