HLDE2021 Ministerial Forums: Day 5 highlights

Co-hosted by Global Champions the Dominican Republic, Pakistan, Italy and Saudi Arabia, Day 5 of the High-Level Dialogue on Energy Ministerial Forums focused on Finance and Investment. Here are the key takeaways from UNDP's Energy team. 

1) Key Announcements

The Dominican Republic announced an ambitious energy compact, which aims to achieve 99% energy access by 2030 and increase renewables share of total power demand and energy efficiency improvements from current levels to 30% by 2030. The Compact also commits to promoting the Technical Assistance Programme for Sustainable Energy in the Caribbean (TAPSEC) to support the region's transition to a low-carbon, sustainable and climate compatible development pathway. 

The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development's energy compact committed to investing EUR 1.9 billion in Green Cities priority investments by the end of 2023, and complete 50 Green City Action Plan (GCAP) where each Green City makes an average of at least three assets (with or without) EBRB financing that addresses priority environmental challenges identified by GCAP. 

Led by youth, Student Energy and New Energy Nexus and the Government of Denmark announced $150 million energy compact. Their compact aims to resource and deploy 10,000 youth-led clean energy projects by 2030, creating structural change by putting real financial resources in the hands of the world's most passionate youth. Funding required to meet this objective is $10 million by December 2021 and $150 million by 2030. The Compact will scale tangible action by young people 18-30 years old through a unique combination of project funding and education, training, and mentorship within Student Energy's programs ecosystem. 

Power Africa announced today its intent to submit an energy compact on health facility electrification at the HLDE Summit in September. They will work with SEforAll between now and September and coordinate with different stakeholders to formulate the Compact. UNDP has been invited to join this effort due to its activities related to Solar for Health.

Read about all the compacts announced during the Ministerial Forums here.

2) Key Observations  

• The current level of investment in the energy transition and clean energy needs to more than triple by 2030 to $4 trillion in order to meet the energy transition and climate targets. This needs to be accompanied by rapid scaling up the adoption of clean technologies that are already available. 
• COVID-19 recovery provides an opportunity to accelerate the shift of financial flow to the energy transition. Building back better means aligning the recovery efforts with the Paris agreement.
• Leaving no one behind means delivering on the promise of universal energy access. It is costly to be poor as people with the lowest income pay the highest price per unity for energy. 
• Energy for all is an audacious goal. The public sector cannot do it alone, and we need the private sector to meet the scale of our ambition to implement the energy transition. We need to deploy blended finance and foster partnerships that can catalyse private sector finance. 
• There needs to be an energy transition framework to account for the distributional impact of the energy transformation. All countries have a common goal but have different starting points. 
• Carbon pricing is now widely accepted as one of the most important policy tools to achieve emission reductions and finance the energy transition. Yet, the potential of carbon pricing as a key instrument of decarbonisation remains largely untapped.
• Access to finance for the clean energy transition and technology innovation is a barrier to SIDS and LDCS. The cooperation of international organizations is needed to make concessional finance flow.
• Creating enabling environments for energy transition investments through regulatory and policy mechanisms is just as important access to finance. 
• The development finance institutions that hold public finance are highly risk-averse. This acts as a barrier to financing innovation and finance flows to low-income countries that do not have the fiscal space to absorb risk. 

3) Thematic Working Group Report on Finance and Investment of SDG 7 and Net-Zero Emissions

The Working Group’s co-leads UN Economic for Commission for Africa, IFC, International Energy Agency and European Investment Bank launched their report, which highlights the need to triple energy investments by 2030 to get to net-zero by 2030. 

The report sets out nine recommendations, which offer a way to scale up these financial flows. They correspond to four priority areas:

• Progress towards an inclusive and sustainable recovery and financial resource mobilization for developed and developing markets
• The alignment of finance flows with the Paris Agreement, SDG 7, and net-zero objectives
• Support of local financial markets and intermediaries in many countries, and public- and private sector collaboration
• Ensuring a robust pipeline of de-risked clean energy projects that can attract private capital

Watch the video summary and download the report for more information

4) Closing speech by UNDP Administrator Achim Steiner

Speaking at the Grand Closing of the Forums, UNDP Administrator and UN Energy co-Chair outlined that this week "has seen leaders and stakeholders come together and take a leap forward in commitments to a green energy transition on the road to the High-level Dialogue on Energy this September, " and issued an urgent call to join the energy revolution:

Five days of HLDE2021 Ministerial Forum comes to a close but our work continue to build towards the HLDE2021 Summit on September 20 and beyond. Onwards!

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Read UNDP's summary of yesterday's proceedings in our daily recap blog here 

Full summary, including video recordings of key moments by IISD’s Earth Negotiations Bulletin here. Follow @IISD_ENB on  Twitter for breaking updates. 

For more information about the HLDE and the Ministerial Forums this week:  

• Factsheet  

• Press Release  - Joint press release from UNDP and SEforAll sharing expectations for the ministerial forum meetings this week.  

• Working Group Report Launches  - Across the week, 5 x reports from each of the working groups are being released. Find executive summaries and links to the reports as they're released at this link. 

Join! Check the Run of Show  (subject to change). Register at this link   to join, listen in and engage in the process.   

We are all advocates: Share your support on social media by sharing, retweeting, quote tweeting or posting your own messaging in support of the messages you hear. Please add hashtags to your post so that your messages can be better tracked #HLDE2021 #SustainableEnergy 

Please consider tagging @UNDP and @UNDPClimate in your post if you have the opportunity. Need inspiration? Suggested Social Media messages can be found here or have look at what we're putting out from @UNDP and @UNDPClimate for inspiration, including our daily Twitter thread offering a recap of the day's proceedings.