Davos, 23 January 2025
Today in Davos, President Ursula von der Leyen launched the Global Energy Transition Forum, together with the Executive Director of the International Energy Agency, Fatih Birol.
At COP28, the world rallied behind the targets of tripling renewable energy and doubling energy efficiency by 2030. The deadline is approaching fast.
The Forum brings together partners from across the world, from Brazil, Canada, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo, to Kenya, Peru, South Africa, the United Arab Emirates, the United Kingdom, and many others, as well as companies and investors, who all share the same objective: maintaining the momentum on the clean energy transition, delivering flagship projects, and unlocking more investment.
No one can be left behind in the global clean energy transition. In her speech, President von der Leyen also highlighted the need for a collective effort to boost Africa’s renewable energy production. Despite holding 60% of the world’s best solar resources and aiming to increase its renewable energy capacity fivefold by 2030, the continent currently gets less than 2% of global clean energy investments.
The President will also tackle this issue at a dinner hosted tonight in Davos, on the theme of the campaign she launched together with President Ramaphosa of South Africa, ‘Scaling up Renewables in Africa.’
The President’s speech at the launch event is available online. More information on the campaignis available online.
Speech by President von der Leyen at the launch of the Global Energy Transition Forum
Presidents,
Ladies and Gentlemen,
Excellencies,
It is wonderful to be here, and I am very much looking forward to having a discussion about how we can boost the global clean energy transition. And I would like to thank the World Economic Forum for shining a spotlight on this so important topic. Let me start with good news, and we need good news in these times: The world is moving faster than ever towards clean energy. Last year alone, global spending on clean energy hit a record USD 2 trillion. For every dollar invested in fossil fuels, you had two dollars invested in renewable energy. In the power sector, clean energy investments outnumber fossil fuels ten to one. This is a shift we have been working towards for years. And it was confirmed when we all collectively set bold targets at COP28: We said we will triple renewable energy and double energy efficiency by 2030. It is evident: The clean energy transition is happening, and it is there to stay. This is not only good news for the planet, this is also good news for innovation. It is good news for energy independence, because this is home-grown energy, so it creates good jobs at home. It is good for economic competitiveness. And last but certainly not least, it lowers energy bills, so it is good for households and businesses.
Despite this progress, there are two big challenges I want to address. First, not everyone is part of this global clean energy transition. If you look at the African continent, for example: It is a continent with huge potential, as we all know, holding 60% of the world’s best solar resources. Yet, it currently gets less than 2% of the global clean energy investments. 600 million people on the continent still lack access to electricity. This is not only unacceptable, it is also unfair. That is why, together with President Ramaphosa and Global Citizens, we launched the global campaign ‘Scaling up Renewables in Africa’. The goal is very simple: bring clean energy to the communities that need it most, not only in Africa but across the globe.
My second point: We are not moving fast enough. It is also about scaling up manufacturing. Every region must be able to produce the technologies it needs. It is about grids, building or upgrading 25 million kilometres of them by 2030. It is about storage, developing the capacity to keep the lights on when the sun does not shine and the wind does not blow. All this demands massive investments. No company, no country and no region can do this alone. We must work together, and we must act now.
That is why, today, we launch the Global Energy Transition Forum. We are bringing together partners from all over the world, from Brazil to Canada, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Kenya, Peru, South Africa, the UK, the United Arab Emirates, and many others. And many more are to come. We have set ourselves three goals: First, we have to sustain the momentum of our historic global energy agreement. These global energy targets must find their way into the next wave of Nationally Determined Contributions, the famous NDCs. We need to turn collective promises into measurable progress. In Europe for example, we have raised our renewable energy target for 2030 to over 42%. Today, we are at 23%, so there is a lot of good and hard work ahead of us. For example, if you take electricity in the European Union 50% now comes from renewables. But you all know the principle: Only what gets measured gets done. This is why, we rely on the trusted partnership with the International Energy Agency to measure this progress of our goals.
Our second goal: We have to turn these targets into very concrete projects. This is why, under Brazil’s COP leadership, this Forum will focus on flagship initiatives, for example projects that bring power to underserved communities, or projects that jump-start new clean industries and scale up clean energy globally. With this we can exchange best practices and learn from each other, and have progress in concrete projects, so it really changes the lives of people on the ground.
And finally, the Global Energy Transition Forum should help to unlock more investment. If we want to be faster, we need more investment. I am very glad that the UK is leading this change. Together, we will champion smarter financing with de-risking tools, blended finance, other solutions to lower costs and attract private capital. We can also learn from African governments, who are introducing tax breaks, public-private partnerships and renewable energy incentives. We see already that these efforts are bearing fruit. Because in the last two years clean energy investments in Africa already nearly doubled.
Ladies and Gentlemen,
The Global Energy Transition Forum is all about connecting the dots; about making sure that governments, companies, and investors find each other, as they do today here. In these times of harsh geostrategic competition predictability, certainty and reliability matters. I want to be very clear with my message: Europe stays the course and we stand ready to work with all global actors to accelerate the transition to clean energy.
Thank you.
Source – EU Commission