Today, at the United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP28), the US Department of State, the Bezos Earth Fund and the Rockefeller Foundation presented the core framework of the Energy Transition Accelerator (ETA), an innovative carbon finance platform aimed at catalyzing private capital to support ambitious just energy transition strategies in developing and emerging economies.
At today's launch event at the US Center at COP28, the three ETA partners announced several important achievements since the creation of their partnership at COP27 a year ago and their goal of formally establishing ETA as a independent initiative for Earth Day 2024.
The ETA will bring together governments and private sector stakeholders who will employ high-integrity carbon credits to achieve faster and deeper greenhouse gas reductions by accelerating the transition from fossil fuels to clean energy in developing and emerging economies. . According to preliminary estimates, ETA could mobilize between $72 billion and $207 billion in transition financing by 2035. ETA is pioneering a sector-wide lending approach that will incentivize participating countries to step up short-term activities that contribute to decarbonization of the energy sector, including deploying and utilizing clean energy and retiring fossil fuel assets, improving storage, transmission and distribution capacity, and any necessary policy changes.
The central framework serves as the basis for the creation of the ETA Coalition. It describes the Coalition and its objectives and provides an overview of the key elements of the ETA:
- Its approach to carbon crediting, including the development of an independent sector-wide accreditation standard for the reduction of emissions from electricity generation;
- Criteria for participating companies and information on how they would use ETA carbon credits to help meet their voluntary climate commitments;
- Just transition provisions to address worker and community needs; plans to dedicate a portion of the funding generated to addressing adaptation and resilience in vulnerable countries; and options for innovative financial structures to mobilize investments in energy transition strategies.
The partners were joined by leading countries and companies that declared their interest in collaborating with ETA partners in the continued development of this innovative initiative. The governments of Chile, the Dominican Republic and Nigeria announced that they would join ETA as pilot countries.
Nine leading companies signed a letter of interest welcoming the ETA as an opportunity to support large-scale energy sector transformation while accelerating progress toward their ambitious climate goals: Bank of America, Boston Consulting Group, Mastercard, McDonald's, Morgan Stanley, PepsiCo, Salesforce, Standard Chartered Bank and Schneider Electric.
ETA partners received extensive input from a High-Level Advisory Group made up of more than 30 intergovernmental, private sector and civil society experts and leaders from all regions of the world. In the design effort, they have been supported by the Center for Climate and Energy Solutions (C2ES), the Environmental Defense Fund (EDF), the Climate Policy Initiative (CPI) and the Glasgow Finance Alliance for Net Zero (GFANZ). . For more information, contact ClimateComms@state.gov
