The Federation of Canadian Municipalities, the Carbon Trust (UK) and the Clean Energy Group (US) today signed a Statement of Intent and Principles to launch the Low Carbon Technology Alliance – an innovative international, multi-party effort to accelerate low carbon technology deployment by closing the "collaborative gap" among practitioners who are using public investment programs. The Statement of Intent and Principles establishes the framework for dialogue among the three founding organizations. It is anticipated that other organizations will join in coming months.
To date, there is not only little sharing of key information among local and regional governments, public funders, companies and NGOs in Europe, the United States and Canada, there is virtually no sharing of knowledge among European, United States and Canadian institutions that are working on key technology implementation mechanisms. The only information that is shared is usually among national governments at a broad policy level.
Low carbon or clean energy technologies and deployment programs covered in the agreement include: energy production from solar, wind, hydro, biomass, ocean thermal, tidal and wave, fuel cells, and related energy storage and conversion technologies, in addition to energy efficiency applications and green building design.
"The Kyoto Protocol is now forcing governments, business and civic institutions to view low carbon technologies in a new way," said Peter Mallaburn, Director, Governmental and External Affairs, The Carbon Trust (UK). "We hope that by bringing together a wide range of international practitioners who are on the leading edge of practical low carbon deployment programs, knowledge sharing needed to build large, durable and sustainable markets for these new technologies can increase rapidly."
"While we recognize that all countries are at different stages of maturity in their market for these technologies," said Lewis Milford, President, Clean Energy Group (US), "we believe that each has something different to offer and to learn. The Low Carbon Technology Alliance is a unique opportunity to take advantage of complementary approaches to delivering change by identifying the best practices of each – such as, the civic programmes of Europe and Canada and the market approaches of the United States – and sharing them."
"This is an economic development opportunity for all countries," said Louise Comeau, Director General the Federation of Canadian Municipalities' Department of Policy, Advocacy and Communications and founding Director of the Federation's Centre for Sustainable Community Development. "The Statement of Intent and Principles signed today is a critical first step toward developing an integrated, systems approach to accelerate low carbon technology deployment worldwide. The working relationships that will be established through the Low Carbon Technology Alliance will help close the "collaborative gap" and will open up an exciting new future for low carbon technology public/private partnerships."
The potential market for new low carbon technologies is of the same order as pharmaceuticals or aerospace. Innovation and investment is the key to bring forward new low carbon technologies and drive them to market. Early signs, particularly in Europe and Canada, indicate that Kyoto and the prospect of emissions trading are beginning to stimulate change and investment by business, but numerous behavioural and organizational barriers to investing in otherwise cost effective measures remain to be overcome.
About the organizations: Federation of Canadian Municipalities (FCM) – The Green Municipal Funds. FCM has been the national voice of municipal governments since 1901. It is dedicated to improving the quality of life in communities by promoting strong, effective and accountable municipal government. The Green Municipal Funds were established in 2000 through an endowment to the Federation of Canadian Municipalities (FCM) by the Government of Canada to stimulate investment in innovative environmental infrastructure projects for Canadian municipal governments and their public or private sector partners. See http://kn.fcm.ca for more information.
UK Carbon Trust. The Trust was set up in March 2001 as part of the UK's Climate Change Programme. It is tasked with using various tools to create a low carbon economy, including energy efficiency, and renewable and clean energy investment in projects and companies. See www.thecarbontrust.co.uk for more information.
Clean Energy Group. CEG is a US-based nonprofit organization dedicated to accelerating the commercialization of clean energy technologies. Among the projects it manages is the Clean Energy States Alliance (CESA), another nonprofit organization that works with various state level public funds that invest in clean energy technologies, projects and infrastructure. See www.cleanenergystates.org and www.cleanegroup.org for more information.
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