Minister Jobet and Bill Gates highlight the importance of clean energy innovation
Chile’s Energy Minister participated in a panel discussion at the COP26 summit in Glasgow with the Microsoft entrepreneur and Canada’s Environment and Climate Change Minister to discuss how to achieve global climate goals.
Energy and Mining Biminister Juan Carlos Jobet was invited to participate alongside Bill Gates and Canada’s Environment and Climate Change Minister, Jonathan Wilkinson, in an activity to highlight the importance of clean energy innovation during this decade, in order to achieve global climate goals. The discussion took place as part of the COP26 summit held in Glasgow, Scotland.
During the event, organized by Mission Innovation, the participants agreed on the importance of public-private collaboration to accelerate the innovation and expansion of new technologies, such as green hydrogen. Bill Gates, who in June participated in the year’s most important clean energy and innovation event (CEM12MI6) held in Chile, stated, “if we want to solve the climate crisis, innovation and new technologies for clean energy must be the central pillar.”
Biminister Jobet emphasized the need to adopt a global vision to fight the climate crisis: “Only by combining the efforts of governments and the private sector around the world will we be able to achieve the enormous scale of transformation needed to mitigate the worst effects of climate change.”
He added that “as a co-leader in the Clean Hydrogen Mission, Chile has witnessed first-hand the value of such collaboration, through the association of Mission Innovation and Breakthrough Energy.”
Mission Innovation is a key platform to achieve the Breakthrough Agenda, announced by world leaders on November 2 at COP26. Through the Missions, governments and the private sector will work together to develop and test clean technologies in multiple sectors.
The goal is to invest in research, development, government demonstration and business talent to make clean energy solutions more affordable, accessible and attractive than their alternatives by 2030. Mission Innovation is expected to invest at least US$250 billion in clean energy innovation this decade.
Green funding
Continuing his COP26 agenda, Biminister Jobet participated in a panel discussion that addressed “the role of green funding to achieve the targets of the Paris Agreement and fulfil sustainable development goals.” Columbia University Professor and sustainable development expert, Jeffrey Sachs, also participated. Professor Sachs stressed the importance of three types of funding to tackle the climate crisis: “One for energy transformation, another for adaptation and resilience, and a third to respond to the losses and damages caused by natural disasters.”
Biminister Jobet was categorical in stating that “without financing, we won’t change climate change. There is money available, but the challenge is to see how we channel those resources into the right projects, in the right places, with the right technologies”.