Global co-operation and international support were key issues at this week's Berlin Energy Transition Dialogue, with governments and global organisations stressing the need for technology transfer to and transparency towards developing countries.
The power of trade policy should be leveraged to "accelerate the dissemination of good technology", World Trade Organisation deputy director general Jean-Marie Paugam argued at the event. Paugam underlined developing countries' fear of being "wiped out of the green market" by subsidies from industrialised countries, only later to find themselves locked in by intellectual property rights.
South Africa is "very conscious of the need for partners in this transition so that we can lock into those global supply chains," the Industrial Development Corporation of South Africa's chief operations officer Joanne Bate said, pointing to the "enormous" risk of South Africa's carbon intensive electricity sector for the country's export products in the context of the EU's carbon border adjustment mechanism.
And global coal-fired power generation is growing, UK energy security and net zero minister Graham Stuart said. The Powering Past Coal Alliance (PPCA), a UK and Canada-chaired coalition of national and sub-national governments, businesses and energy transition organisations, will be "refreshing its finance principles" over the next five years, Stuart said, aiming to provide a blueprint for financial institution members to support the goals of the PPCA's OECD members that are targeting a coal phase-out by 2030, with the other countries expected to do so by 2040.
The OECD is currently working on a "gold standard" for financial institutions, as part of diplomatic initiative the "coal transition accelerator" (CTA) launched by France and the US at last year's UN Cop 28 climate conference, Jo Tyndall, director of the OECD environment directorate, said. The standard will provide "clear guidelines" on outlining a robust financing policy or strategy to transition away from coal, Tyndall said.
And the UN Industrial Development Organisation's Industrial Deep Decarbonisation Initiative (IDDI) will kick-start its "global matchmaking platform" at Cop 29 in Baku, Azerbaijan, in November, in co-operation with the "Climate Club" spearheaded by Germany's government, IDDI clean energy ministerial lead Rana Ghoneim said. The platform will help match countries to service providers such as think-tanks or institutions, and to different financial partners or donors.
Timur Gul, chief energy technology officer at co-host of the Climate Club secretariat the IEA, voiced his hope that Cop 29 might yield some agreement not just on harmonised standards and definitions, but also on green procurement pledges by governments.
The IDDI may help bring in the necessary "specificity" to countries' nationally determined contributions under the Paris climate agreement regarding industry-related emissions, Ghoneim said, one of the biggest gaps the IDDI sees in the climate plans.
