Global Energy Transition Forum launched
Image: European Commission
The Global Energy Transition Forum has been launched at the World Economic Forum by European Commission President, Ursula von der Leyen.
The new forum, which is intended to build on the Commission’s pledge on global renewables and energy efficiency launched at COP28, is planned to bring together partners from countries around the world with the objective of reaching for ambitious climate targets at the world level and supporting countries for whom the energy transition is more challenging.
The three main goals of the forum are first to maintain the momentum on the world’s energy agreement and to ensure that the targets – a tripling of renewable energy and doubling energy efficiency by 2030 – are incorporated in the new set of ‘nationally determined contributions’ due before COP30.
Those targets then also have to be turned into concrete projects that benefit the people.
Have you read?
World Economic Forum launches new centres for the energy transition
Energy Transitions podcast: Why people power is the real fuel of the energy transition
Example ‘flagship’ initiatives that will be focussed on include bringing power to underserved communities or jump-starting new clean industries and scaling up clean energy globally.
The third is to unlock more investment, including smarter financing with de-risking tools, blended finance and other solutions to lower costs and attract private capital.
Announcing the forum, von der Leyen said we are not moving fast enough.
“It is also about scaling up manufacturing … It is about grids … It is about storage. All this demands massive investments. No company, no country and no region can do this alone. We must work together, and we must act now.
“The Global Energy Transition Forum is all about connecting the dots; about making sure that governments, companies and investors find each other. In these times of harsh geostrategic competition predictability, certainty and reliability matter.”
As an example of the challenges von der Leyen highlighted in her comments Africa, which gets only 2% of clean energy investment, despite being home to 60% of the world’s best solar resources – an issue the ‘Scaling up renewables in Africa’ initiative launched at the G20 summit in November 2024 is hoped to address.
Further details about the forum, such as on membership and governance, are still to be made available.
