about the clean energy conference

Financing clean energy: A framework for public-private partnership to tackle climate change

London, 13- 14 March 2007

On March 13-14 2007, the EBRD will host a conference on "Financing clean energy: a framework for public-private partnership to tackle climate change".

Within the context of the G8-Gleneagles dialogue, this conference will be held at the EBRD in London and is being organised by the EBRD, the World Bank Group, the World Economic Forum and the World Business Council for Sustainable Development. It will provide business with a key opportunity to engage in the refinement and implementation of the Multilateral Development Banks’ Clean Energy Investment Framework.

Building on the growing consensus that determined action is necessary to address climate change concerns, the conference aims to identify specific measures required to significantly increase financing to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. The conference will focus on ways of increasing financial flows from public and private sources to shift to a lower carbon economy, including through energy efficiency and renewable energy.

Companies, government representatives at the highest level from the G-8 countries and the G-20 nations, and the Presidents of the Multilateral Development Banks will converge in London to further their cooperation and to discuss concrete initiatives in critical energy-related sectors.

The conference, which is by invitation only, will open in the afternoon of March 13, with discussion and debate between global business leaders, government ministers and the heads of the Multilateral Development Banks. High level discussions will be pursued at an evening reception with UK Chancellor Gordon Brown, one of the afternoon speakers.

On March 14, working groups with senior staff from private sector companies and the various institutions attending the conference will discuss specific issues and opportunities for enhancing private sector financing in the following areas: energy production, renewable energy, energy efficiency, climate change adaptation, and new financing instruments. While the Multilateral Development Banks will explain their initiatives, the key objective of these working groups will be to identify a specific set of actions to increase private sector participation in each of these areas, to be undertaken as quickly as possible. A final plenary will define the way forward and specific actions for follow-up. The outcomes of these working groups will be presented at the international Gleneagles Dialogue on climate change at the September meeting under Germany’s G-8 presidency, ahead of the World Bank’s annual meetings.