Foundation-led green energy alliance announces CEO, global south plans

An international public-private alliance seeking to use philanthropic funding to attract private capital to green energy projects in the global south is staffing up and preparing to quickly mobilize initiatives to support the transition to renewable energy. The Global Energy Alliance for People and Planet launched during the 26th United Nations Climate Change Conference, or COP 26, in November with $1.5 billion in philanthropic commitments from the Bezos Earth Fund, the IKEA Foundation, and The Rockefeller Foundation. It has pledged to “unlock USD100 billion in public and private capital.” The group this week announced the hire of its first CEO, Simon Harford. He was most recently a senior adviser at Actis, a sustainable infrastructure investment firm, and previously headed its Africa operations. He also previously served as a senior adviser for the Larry Ellison Foundation, a charitable organization created by billionaire Larry Ellison that was shuttered in 2020. Ravi Venkatesan, a special representative for young people at UNICEF, will also step in as board chair for the alliance. The new hires come just as the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change this week issued a report with its latest dire warnings about the consequences of inaction on climate change. The alliance aims to help what an analysis it published refers to as “energy-poor” countries. "The Global Energy Alliance for People and Planet can become the leading platform for supporting decarbonization of power in developing countries and providing access to reliable clean energy, jobs, and economic development," said Andrew Steer, president and CEO at the Bezos Earth Fund, in a press release for the hires. “These two excellent appointments demonstrate the passion and professionalism that GEAPP will bring to the agenda.” The alliance’s new leadership team also includes Clare Boland Ross as chief strategy and program impact officer, Sundaa Bridgett-Jones as chief partnerships and advocacy officer, and Joseph Nganga as executive director for Africa. GEAPP is currently forming a board and is generally trying to build up as quickly as it can, IKEA Foundation CEO Per Heggenes told Devex. He said part of the team already is in place and some programs were already running in different countries. “We’re trying to accelerate this as quickly as we can,” Heggenes said. “We also are, of course, building the alliance, because the alliance should ideally consist of a lot of partners, a lot of philanthropies, a lot of businesses, organizations, development banks.” He added that the “whole idea” was to pull all of those sectors together and take climate finance to “a totally different level.” GEAPP launched with overall commitments totaling $10 billion for fossil fuel transitioning, grid-based renewables, and distributed renewables. In addition to the trio of foundations, the alliance includes investment partners like African Development Bank, Asian Development Bank, European Investment Bank, Inter-American Development Bank, International Finance Corporation, U.S. International Development Finance Corporation, the World Bank, and the United Kingdom’s CDC Group. The U.K., Italy, and Denmark are listed as country partners. Bridgett-Jones, who has also held senior positions at The Rockefeller Foundation, told Devex that the alliance was “really looking for talent who are also going to be based in the markets in which we’re working,” noting that priority locations include Africa, Asia, and Latin America, where the alliance expects much of its work to be done. “For too long, the world has focused on and financed climate solutions for big, developed countries at the expense of developing economies.” --— Sundaa Bridgett-Jones, chief partnerships and advocacy officer, GEAPP In this week’s report, IPCC highlighted the high stakes for countries in the global south if more international action isn’t taken to combat climate change. The panel, which pushed for countries to act more quickly to mitigate further global warming, wrote in a summary document that human-induced climate change has already caused “widespread adverse impacts,” some of which are “irreversible” and pushing natural and human systems “beyond their ability to adapt.” The report also showed that between 3.3 billion and 3.6 billion people currently live in areas that are “highly vulnerable” to climate change. The report noted a World Bank estimate that at least 32 million additional people could fall into extreme poverty by 2030 due to climate impacts without adaptation. Echoing the report’s findings, Bridgett-Jones said many of the people who are expected to be most impacted by climate change live in countries and communities that have contributed the least to global emissions. These communities also lack access to reliable and affordable electricity, which is a primary constraint on equitable economic development and an essential tool to withstand the effects of a warming planet, she added. “The report highlights the deep inequity of the climate crisis,” Bridgett-Jones said. “For too long, the world has focused on and financed climate solutions for big, developed countries at the expense of developing economies that are home to half the world’s population, in effect leaving the governments of emerging economies needing to spend to survive climate change. Saddling these countries with this cost is not sustainable.” The IPCC report further highlighted the small percentage of climate-related research funding or private finance that has gone to the developing world — and especially to countries in Africa — in recent years, Bridgett-Jones said. She said that is why GEAPP is committed to directing private and public capital to those countries as a means of battling the climate crisis, reducing energy poverty, and broadening economic inclusion. By 2050, so-called energy-poor developing economies could produce up to 75% of emissions, she said. GEAPP has issued a call for additional country partnerships, specifically inviting emerging economies to apply for technical assistance and funding to help them stand up clean energy projects that could become part of the alliance’s investment pipeline. The deadline for those applications is March 15. “By COP 27, we will be announcing transformational country programs across Africa, Asia, Latin America, and the Caribbean that will help rapidly advance our shared carbon reduction, job creation, and energy-access goals,” Bridgett-Jones said. The conference is set to take place in Egypt in November.