An international meeting on climate finance has approved plans to mobilise US$40 billion for country-led low-carbon growth. The Clean Technology Fund endorsed investment plans for Colombia, Indonesia, Kazakhstan and Ukraine, bringing the number of plans in place around the world to 13. Donors to the Fund, which is managed by the World Bank, are the United States, Britain, Switzerland, the Netherlands, Norway and Japan.

The Clean Technology Fund’s finance is intended to leverage local investment in low carbon technologies. For example, following the Fund’s endorsement ot a $US5.6 billion investment in concentrating solar power for Algeria, Egypt, Jordan, Morocco and Tunisia, Morocco has announced plans for a $US9 billion solar energy project which will supply 38% of the country’s electricity by 2020.

The Moroccan project consists of five power generation sites to produce 2,000 megawatts of electricity, with a combined surface area of 10,000 hectares.

Indonesia is using Clean Technology Fund money as part of the funding for its plan to double its geothermal energy production capacity.
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Greenpeace and the European Renewable Energy Council have released a report into the impact of switching to renewable on employment.

According to the report, called Working for the Climate, switching to renewable forms of electricity and phasing out coal would create 2.7 million additional new jobs.

The report concludes that a total of 11.3 million people could be working in the electricity sector and related businesses by 2030 if fossils fuels were phased out in favour of renewable energy. Without those changes, 8.6 million people would be working in the electricity sector.

The report says that the coal industry, which currently employs about 4.7 million people globally, will contract by 1.4 million jobs even without proposed wsitch to renewables.

California’s per capita electricity use has remained constant since the 1970s – despite ever-larger homes, more electric gadgets and almost doubling of the State’s economy. In the rest of the United States, per capita consumption has increased by 50%. On average, Californians emit 20% less greenhouse gases than people in such "green" countries as Germany and Denmark,

How did California do it? In part, by promoting strong building standards and aggressively deploying energy-efficient technologies, including such obvious measures as better insulation, energy-efficient lighting, heating and cooling.

But some of the strategies are less obvious. The State found that the average residential air duct leaked 20 to 30 percent of the heated or cooled air it carried – so, it required leakage rates to be below 6 percent, and now inspects every seventh new home to check. About 15 percent of the light in outdoor lighting for parking lots and streets was directed up, illuminating nothing but the sky – new outdoor lighting must cut that to below 6 percent. Flat roofs on commercial buildings must now be white to reflects the sunlight and keep the building cooler, reducing air-conditioning energy demands.

But the big benefit came from "decoupling" utility company profits from how much electricity they sell. Electricity companies take a share of any energy savings that they help consumers and businesses achieve. The State does not specify how this is to be done – that’s left to the utility company. But the effect is to put energy-efficiency investments on the same competitive playing field as generation from new power plants. Which produces savings for consumers, profits for the utilities and savings and reduced greenhouse gas emissions for the State.

(Based on Sources including Newsweek and the International Herald Tribune).

Also see How Germany Does It

A group of major international financial institutions has joined to launch a new code to guide best practice across the sector to deal with the risks and opportunities of climate change.

The new code, titled The Climate Principles, is the first comprehensive industry framework for the sector’s response to climate change and has been adopted by Crédit Agricole, HSBC, Munich Re, Standard Chartered and Swiss Re.

Under the Principles, insurance and reinsurance institutions will be required to advise clients on climate risks and mitigation technologies. Corporate and investment banks will have to work on financing solutions to facilitate investment in low carbon technologies and greenhouse gas reduction projects as well as measuring the climate impacts of their investments. In addition, investment banks will have to build expertise to support development of trading in emissions, weather derivatives, renewable energy credits and other climate related commodities. Project financiers will require clients to disclose project greenhouuse gas emissions and seek reduction and offset solutions.

The Independent newspaper has reported that "top economists and United Nations leaders are working on a "Green New Deal" to create millions of jobs, revive the world economy, slash poverty and avert environmental disaster".

The ambitious plan, which the paper says will be formally launched in London next week, will call on world leaders, including the new US President, to promote a massive redirection of investment away from the speculation that has caused the bursting “financial and housing bubbles” and into job-creating programmes to restore the natural systems that underpin the world economy.

The Green Economy Initiative, which will be spearheaded by the United Nations Environment Programme, draws its inspiration from Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal, which ended the 1930s depression and helped set up the world economy for the unprecedented growth of the second half of the 20th century.
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The stock market crash of 1929 is generally taken beginning of the Great Depression. In fact, the stock market significantly recovered within a few months. The real problems started when consumer confidence failed in the early 1930s, leading to a downward spiral in consumption, production and employment.

There have been comparisons between 1929 and the current situation but there are very significant differences – particularly in Australia.

When there is a decline in confidence, three things need to happen to boost economic activity.

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While the world focused on the US Senate’s bill to bail out the banks, a "sweetener" added to the final version of the bill to help get it through the House of Representatives may well prove to be more important than its effect on the stock market.

The renewable energy tax incentive legislation provides about $18 billion in tax credits for renewable energy development – and much of the money will come from closing tax loopholes for the oil and gas industry. Solar energy tax credits for businesses and residential installations have been extended for eight years. Wind power tax credits have been extended for one year and other types of renewable energy such as small-scale hydro or tidal power have been extended for two years.

Carl Pope, Executive Director of the Sierra Club, America’s largest environmental organisation, commented that "The extension of these provisions will save tens of thousands of jobs that were already at risk, and paves the way for hundreds of thousands more to be created in the years to come. Passing these renewable energy tax incentives for wind and solar represents one of the most important ways America can enable the transition to a clean energy economy. Supporting investment in these clean energy technologies will create new high wage American jobs, save consumers money on their energy bills and reduce global warming pollution."

While finance institutions are struggling as a result of the collapsing US house market and falling oil prices, the Cleantech Group has reported record global investment in renewables.

In the quarter to 30 September, global investment in the clean technology sector was up by 37% over last year and by 17% over the previous quarter.

Most of the funding went to thin film solar businesses, algae companies and start-ups developing smart grid hardware and software.

The big investors in the sector included Rockport Capital, Google, Kleiner Perkins Caulfield & Byers and Khosla Ventures. 42 percent of global clean technology investment was in companies based in California.

China is already the world’s leading renewable energy producer and is over-taking more developed economies in exploiting valuable economic opportunities, creating green-collar jobs and leading development of critical low carbon technologies, according to a new report to be published by The Climate Group*.

 The key findings of the report include:

• China is already the world’s leading producer of renewable energy and plans to double its proportion of renewable energy by 2020. It is currently investing more annually than any other country except Germany.
• China has doubled its production of photovoltaic cells in each of the last four years and is now second to Japan as the world’s largest producer of solar panels.
• By 2009, China will be the leading exporter of wind turbines. It is also taking the lead in solar water heaters, energy efficient home appliances and rechargeable batteries.
• China is leading the world in fuel efficiency standards for cars – 40% higher than the United States. 21 million electric bicycles and 1.64 million energy efficient compact cars were sold in 2007. China is the world’s third largest ethanol producer and is developing an area of marginal land half the size of the UK for biofuel production.
• Returns on Chinese energy efficiency improvements often exceed 50 per cent per annum – equivalent to a pay-back period of only two years.
• A low carbon wave has swept up tens of thousands of Chinese companies and created some of China’s most successful businesses.

According to Wu Changhua, China Director for the Climate Group, while it is true that China is building a large number of new coal-fired power plants, many of these will replace older, less efficient plants. He siad that China’s leaders "really understand the issue. They know the urgency of the issue. They know the impact of the issue not only to the world but to China.”

* The Climate Group is an independent, nonprofit organisation dedicated to advancing business leadership on climate change.  It is operates from the UK, the USA, Australia, China and India.

In announcing plans for the UK to spend £100 billion pounds ($au207 billion) on renewable energy over the next 12 years, British Prime Minister, Gordon Brown, said "This is a green revolution in the making. It will be a tenfold increase on our current deployment of renewables, and a 300% increase on our existing plans: the most dramatic change in our energy policy since the advent of nuclear power."

The comprehensive, 289-page strategy calls for the installation of seven million solar panels; a 90 per cent increase in the use of ground source heat pumps, 3,500 onshore wind turbines and 7,000 offshore generating around a third of the UK’s electricity and biomass power plants fueled by waste and timber capable of providing six per cent of electricity.

The strategy also outlines how the government plans to remove all of the planning and technical barriers that have hampered renewable energy projects to date. The Ministry of Defence has already been instructed to drop its opposition to wind farms.

The Government expects that the strategy will create 160,000 green-collar jobs and reduce carbon emissions by 20 million tonnes per annum by 2020. In the longer term, the UK is aiming for zero carbon emissions from power generation by 2050.