A/S Pyatt: Thank you so much, Anna. Good morning everybody. Again, welcome to the U.S. Center for COP27 here in Sharm el-Shiekh.
I’m incredibly excited about today’s event because it gives us the opportunity to highlight the nexus between government officials, corporate executives and our societies to highlight the progress and potential of the Clean Energy Demand Initiative.
Secretary Kerry launched CEDI last year at COP to bring companies and countries together to accelerate the energy transition. This initiative is premised on the understanding that we can only meet our climate ambitions if we work across sectors and collaborate to create policies and investment ecosystems that drive clean energy deployment. It is founded on the principle that the energy transition is the most important single economic opportunity of our generation and we need to galvanize our work together.
CEDI has made fantastic progress in just its first year. Eighty companies or so have joined the initiative to signal their interest in clean energy. Taken together these companies have the potential to drive hundreds of billions of dollars in investment for renewable energy, and in the 14 countries that have been identified as CEDI partners to begin with, several of these multinational companies will join us today to discuss their corporate clean energy progress and goals and how CEDI fits into their efforts. I want to thank all of our corporate sponsors and partners for their participation.
CEDI has also expanded its government membership over the past year with four countries signing CEDI letters of intent. I really want to extend my appreciation to those four countries — Nigeria, Thailand, Australia, and the Philippines. We’ll hear from leaders from some of those governments later this morning about the potential for corporate renewable procurement and how working with the private sector and with each other we can accelerate investment and deployment.
I’m incredibly encouraged about the progress that has already happened, but we know that with additional resources CEDI has the potential to push this envelope on financing even further and faster, and in that regard I’m incredibly excited to launch the CEDI Secretariat. And I want to thank especially our partners at Google.org and the Clean Energy Buyers Alliance which have made that Secretariat feasible.
The Secretariat will ensure that CEDI has the people, operational structure and funding to support its extensive member network. The Secretariat will engage governments and companies. It will track policies and corporate investments in clean energy. It will catalog and disseminate best practices. It will host public/private events and will continue CEDI’s efforts to unlock clean energy markets around the world.
We’re incredibly grateful for Google.org’s support to the Secretariat effort, and I particularly want to thank Google’s Chief Sustainability Officer Kate Brant who is with us today. We really appreciate, Kate, your leadership, Google’s partnership on corporate sustainability, and look forward to working closely with you and your team through the CEDI Secretariat.
Thank you so much for letting me join you today. And back to Anna.
Original source can be found here.
