The Green Growth Knowledge Partnership (GGKP), under the leadership of the Global Green Growth Institute (GGGI) and other GGKP partner institutions, convened leading experts, practitioners, academics from the energy sector and other relevant stakeholders for the Seventh GGKP Annual Conference in Seoul, Republic of Korea, on 21-22 October 2019, as part of the Global Green Growth Week (GGGW) 2019.
Hosted by GGGI, the two-day conference kicked off with welcoming remarks from former UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, who currently serves as the president and chair of GGGI. In his video address, he highlighted that the transition towards renewable energy is not only about challenges, but also presents new opportunities to modernize our energy systems, accelerate and diversify economies, create green jobs, increase productivity and competitiveness, and reduce poverty.
Following his remarks, Arthouros Zervos, Chair of REN21, delivered a keynote address on the potential benefits associated with energy transformation. He emphasized that achieving progress in climate and development requires not only expanding the roles of renewable energy, but also curtailing the use of fossil fuel.
A main component of the annual conference was presentations of scientific papers on a range of subjects related to sustainable energy. This year, 28 research papers highlighted key challenges, insights, and innovations and solutions for dramatically scaling up sustainable energy were presented, including on exploring objectives, factors and technology innovations to inform power sector decisions and financing for renewable energy projects. In addition, three high-level panels – with representative from Denmark, the Philippines, Burkina Faso, Papua New Guinea, Colombia, Austria, the United Arab Emirates and elsewhere – spoke on successful approaches on achieving national economic growth and energy security objectives by scaling up clean energy.
On day two of the meeting, International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA) Director-General Francesco La Camera highlighted the need for countries to fully replace fossil-based energy systems with renewable energy and other sustainable energy systems. "We have to create a market that accelerates renewable energy," he said.
During the conference, the GGKP Secretariat introduced the recently launched Green Finance Platform and Green Industry Platform, as well as the refreshed policy platform. The Head of the GGKP Secretariat Benjamin Simmons also shared the idea of launching a new interactive online community space focusing on specific sector and thematic areas in 2020. He also emphasized that urgent actions are required to rapidly transform the global energy system to green energy and committed the GGKP partnership to supporting this effort.
Following his message, Mark Radka, the Chief of the UNEP Energy and Climate Branch announced that the next GGKP Annual Conference will be hosted in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, in 2021.
The meeting concluded with an award for the best overall paper presented to Tim Reber with his research "Green Micro-grid Business Models to Scale Up Investment: Productive Use, Financial Bundling and Tariff Strategies" and the best paper by a young researcher to Hemen Mark Butu's "Barriers to Financing Renewable Energy in sub-Saharan Africa and Exploring an Innovative Crowdfunding Model: A case of Nigeria and Cameroon".
Established in January 2012, the GGKP is dedicated to advancing the green growth agenda around the world by offering practitioners and policymakers the policy guidance, good practices, tools and data necessary to support the transition to a green economy. Under the leadership of the Global Green Growth Institute (GGGI), the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), the United Nations Environment Programme (UN Environment), the United Nations Industrial Development Organization (UNIDO) and the World Bank, the GGKP has more than 60 partner organizations from around the world.