Vastly higher clean energy targets are essential to empower the international community to make the leap to a sustainable future, according to Richard Heinberg, coauthor of “Our Renewable Future: Laying the Path for One Hundred Percent Clean Energy.” In this interview, he delves into the practical challenges involved in the global transition to renewable power sources.

China is leading a global shift toward renewable energy. For the third time in a row, China has ranked in the 1st place in EY’s Renewable Energy Country Attractiveness Index.

“There are no jobs on a dead planet,” said Sharan Burrow, general secretary of the International Trade Union Confederation. Burrow is vice-chair of The B Team, a coalition of business and civil society leaders that was founded by Richard Branson and Jochen Zeitz. In an attempt to address the dual dangers of economic injustice and environmental disaster that Burrow’s remark references, The B Team launched the Pledge for a Just Transition to Decent Jobs in August 2018.

In 2013, Chinese president Xi Jinping announced the beginning of an initiative that he would later dub the “project of the century.” The Belt and Road Initiative is a massive infrastructure-integration project undertaken by the Chinese government to improve the connectivity between Asia, Europe and Africa. It effectively covers more than half of the world’s population and a third of the world’s GDP.

What insights about the cleantech startup ecosystem can accelerate the clean energy economy? Speakers on a panel at Horizon18 in Boston on Oct. 11, “Game Changers in the Clean Economy Marketplace: Innovative Solutions for the Future,” said that while some dynamic trends are taking place in the market, they recognize the obstacles that slow down new startups and technologies.

Some marketers view energy efficiency as invisible to United States consumers. Within the industry itself, benefits that are not measured in kWh are often invisible, said Noel Stevens, senior consultant at DNV GL. During a webinar hosted by Northeast Energy Efficiency Partnerships on Sept. 19, “Quantifying the Value Proposition: Recent Work on Non-Energy Impacts,” he and other speakers showed the selling points of retooling savings estimates.

The recent United Nations (UN) report “Gender and Climate Finance” has said that climate finance can catalyze the transition to zero-carbon and climate-resilient development while addressing gender issues such as equality and empowerment.

It’s urgent to fund climate solutions in developing nations. The risk of climate-related adversities particularly affects the poor, who already suffer disproportionately from these impacts. Direct government funding is scarce in the least-developed countries. Hence, climate change investment needs are significant. One way to address this gap and also reduce investment risks is to use results-based climate finance.

Developing countries are in need of significant financial investments to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and build climate resilience. In most developing countries, government investments for climate change are limited. Therefore, in order to fulfill their commitments to the Paris Agreement, governments need to rely on other external sources of funding. Identifying and accessing these funds, however, still remains a big challenge.