Today at the UN Climate Change Conference (COP28), the U.S. Department of State, the Bezos Earth Fund, and The Rockefeller Foundation presented the core framework of the Energy Transition Accelerator (ETA), an innovative carbon finance platform aimed at catalyzing private capital to support ambitious just energy transition strategies in developing and emerging economies.
At today's launch event at the U.S. Center at COP28, the three ETA partners announced several major achievements since their partnership's creation at COP27 one year ago and their aim to formally establish the ETA as an independent initiative by Earth Day 2024.
The ETA will bring together governments and private sector stakeholders employing high-integrity carbon crediting to deliver faster, deeper greenhouse gas reductions by accelerating the transition from fossil fuels to clean power in developing and emerging economies. Based on preliminary estimates, the ETA could mobilize from $72 billion to $207 billion in transition finance by 2035. The ETA is pioneering a sectoral-scale crediting approach that will incentivize participating countries to intensify their near-term activities contributing to power sector decarbonization, including to deploy and utilize clean power and retire fossil fuel assets, to enhance storage capacity, transmission, and distribution, and for any needed policy shifts.
The core framework serves as a foundation for the creation of the ETA Coalition. It describes the Coalition and its objectives and provides an overview of key elements of the ETA:
- Its approach to carbon crediting, including the development of an independent sectoral-scale crediting standard for emissions reductions from electricity generation;
- Criteria for participating companies and information on how they would use ETA carbon credits to help meet their voluntary climate commitments;
- Just transition provisions to address worker and community needs; plans to dedicate a portion of the finance generated to address adaptation and resilience in vulnerable countries; and options for innovative financial structures to mobilize investment into energy transition strategies.
The partners were joined by countries and leading companies declaring their interest in engaging with the ETA partners in the continued development of the groundbreaking initiative. The governments of Chile, the Dominican Republic, and Nigeria announced they would be joining the ETA as pilot countries.
Nine leading companies signed a letter of interest welcoming the ETA as an opportunity to support large-scale power sector transformation while accelerating progress towards their ambitious climate goals: Bank of America, Boston Consulting Group, Mastercard, McDonald's, Morgan Stanley, PepsiCo, Salesforce, Standard Chartered Bank, and Schneider Electric.
