Biggest ever global coalition for clean energy launched at Glasgow climate summit
The Green Grids Initiative has been launched this Tuesday 2 November, at an English and French event, with debates and questions. What are the aims of this project ?
Objectives of the Green Grids Initiative: Combine a massive increase in solar and wind power with international grids on every continent, connecting energy-rich locations such as sunny deserts and windy coastlines. Combine large-scale solar power stations, wind farms and grids with rooftop solar and community grids, including village minigrids, to ensure a reliable, resilient and affordable supply of clean energy for all. Accelerate the energy transition in all parts of the world to stay within a safe global carbon budget.
This virtual event hosted by the Climate Parliament will include:
Live streaming for 15 minutes of the announcement at the World Leaders’ Summit of a new worldwide coalition of governments called the Green Grids Initiative – One Sun One World One Grid.
- The announcement will be made in a session on accelerating clean technology by summit host Prime Minister Boris Johnson and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
- We will stay with the live stream from Glasgow to hear the intervention of US President Joe Biden, who will speak immediately after Prime Minister Modi.
- The Green Grids Initiative – One Sun One World One Grid (GGI-OSOWOG) will be coordinated by a Ministerial Steering Group to include France, India, the United Kingdom and the United States, plus representatives from Africa, the Gulf, Latin America and Southeast Asia.
- GGI-OSOWOG has already been endorsed by more than 80 Member States of the International Solar Alliance.
The Climate Parliament virtual event will present the wider Green Grids Initiative coalition of organisations and institutions who have been convened by the UK COP26 Presidency and the Climate Parliament. Our online event is not speaking on behalf of the GGI-OSOWOG government-to-government group. That is being done by the national leaders themselves in Glasgow, to be followed later in the week by a ministerial event there. The Green Grids Initiative will maintain a separate identity from GGI-OSOWOG, with three key functions:
- Generate political will to increase the speed and scale of the transition.
- Feed in expertise, and share ideas and experience, to step up the pace.
- Mobilise finance to build clean energy infrastructure faster.
Speed is everything, because humanity is in a race against time to leave a liveable planet for our children. To address this challenge, the Climate Parliament event will include brief interventions (1-2 minutes each) from:
1. African superstar Angelique Kidjo, whose songs include We Are One in the Disney film Lion King II, will both speak and sing. Angelique was one of Time Magazine’s 100 most influential people on the planet in 2021.
2. Experts including: Dr. William Ury (USA), author of world best-seller on negotiation Getting to Yes, and co-founder of the Climate Parliament and the Harvard Program on Negotiation; and UCL Professor Yacob Mulugetta (Ethiopia), a Lead Author in the IPCC, representing the Climate Compatible Growth programme. CCG is a consortium of universities including Cambridge, Imperial, Loughborough, Oxford and University College London, which is providing research support to the Green Grids Initiative.
3. Corporate CEOs including Paddy Padmanathan of ACWA Power (the world record holder for the cheapest ever solar power), and Anand Mahindra, Chairman of one of India’s largest industrial groups (including solar power and electric vehicles) Mahindra and Mahindra, and former Chairman of the Confederation of Indian Industry.
4. Youth climate leaders including: Alexandria Villaseñor (USA), co-founder of the Youth Climate Strike, and Ayisha Siddiqa (Pakistan), co-founder of Polluters Out.
5. Climate Parliament legislators. Elected politicians are the only people on the planet who have a mandate to rapidly transform the global energy system. We will hear from Climate Parliament members who have played a key role in developing the Green Grids Initiative. They include: Barry Gardiner MP (UK), former Congressman Tom Downey (USA); Senator Abshiro Halake (Kenya), former Senator Silvia Hernández (Mexico), Dr Sanjay Jaiswal MP (India) and Climate Parliament Chairwoman Sirpa Pietikäinen MEP (Finland). Other leading elected officials to speak include: Adam Bandt MP, Australia; former Florida Governor and now Congressman Charlie Crist (USA); Tanvir Shakil Joy MP, Bangladesh; Rebecca Kamara MP, Sierra Leone; Sam Onuigbo MP, Nigeria; Zanetor Rawlings MP, Ghana; Deputy Yacouba Sangaré, Ivory Coast; Chief Minister Conrad Sangma, Meghalaya State, India; Environment Minister Aditya Thakeray, Maharashtra State, India; and Deputy Juliette Paule Zingan, Senegal.
6. International and national agency representatives including: Armida Salsiah Alisjahbana (Indonesia), head of the UN Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (coordinating a Green Grids Initiative Asia-Pacific Working Group); Will Blyth, Senior Research Fellow, UK Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office; Ashvin Dayal, Senior Vice-President of the Rockefeller Foundation for their Power and Climate Initiative; Tareq Emtairah, Director of the Department of Energy, UN Industrial Development Organisation; Monica Gullberg, Green Climate Fund (coordinating a GGI Finance Working Group); and Moeketsi Enos Thobela, African Development Bank (coordinating, together with the African Union Commission, the GGI Africa Working Group). Many other major international development agencies have been involved in preparing the Green Grids Initiative, including the International Energy Agency, the International Renewable Energy Agency and most major multilateral development banks.
Structure of event: The Climate Parliament virtual launch event will begin with a 10-minute video providing background on the Green Grids Initiative. The short speeches by national leaders (around four minutes each) will take place within the first hour. Each of the other speakers will speak for 1-2 minutes, following which questions from journalists will be addressed. There will then be further interventions by Members of Parliament and Congress from around the world. The event will be moderated by Nicholas Dunlop, Secretary-General of the Climate Parliament. It will run for approximately two hours. You are welcome to join part or all of the event. It will also be available to view online within a few hours on the Climate Parliament’s Green Grids Initiative web page at:
To join the event on 2 November:
DOWNLOAD THE FULL PRESS RELEASE, HIGH-RESOLUTION COPY-RIGHT FREE MEDIA IMAGES AND GREEN GRID LOGOS AT THENEWSMARKET.COM/GREENGRID
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