$ 1 billion for the energy transition of developing countries.

The global fight against climate change and greenhouse gas emissions will receive support of $ 1 billion.

The IKEA and Rockefeller foundations have announced their cooperation to allocate the sum of $ 500 million each. This global platform will aim to combat global warming but also to contribute to the development of distributed renewable energies. “Our collective ambition is to create a platform that supports renewable energy programs capable of rapidly and effectively reducing greenhouse gas emissions and accelerating the energy transition,” said Per Heggenes, Executive Director of the Foundation IKEA. He stressed that the goals decided in the Paris Agreement have no chance of being achieved if global energy consumption continues to be fueled by fossil fuels and does not switch very quickly to renewable energies. For his part, Dr Rajiv J. Shah, President of the Rockefeller Foundation, said that this partnership “will unlock the funding and resources needed to provide clean and reliable electricity. "

Thanks to this initiative, the two foundations are counting on a reduction in carbon emissions by one billion tonnes thanks to the financing of sustainable projects that will provide a reliable and environmentally friendly solution to communities that until now depend on fossil fuels. to produce their energy. According to the UN, some 2.8 billion people in the world, and more specifically in developing countries, do not have access to reliable sources of energy. Armed with this figure, the two foundations set themselves the goal of providing clean energy to one billion of them in the next decade.

The platform will be managed as an investment fund. Ikea and Rockefeller obviously want to attract as many private and institutional investors as possible in order to accelerate the fight against climate change around the world. Without a concerted and large-scale effort involving all the countries of the world, including those in greatest difficulty, the struggle will be in vain and much too slow. The funds collected will then be redistributed to finance sustainable local projects. As the two foundation leaders put it together: “When it comes to delivering renewable energy to poor countries, nothing has ever happened to such an extent. The investment will help increase the leverage of developing countries through private companies and international development agencies , ”Rajiv Shah told Bloomberg. And Per Hegges adds: “We have to be honest and realize that the current approach is not having the impact the world needs today. We are mainly concerned with speeding up the process ”

The Rockefeller Foundation will incubate the platform within RF Catalytic Capital Inc, which it launched in 2020, in order to facilitate joint investments. This fund of 1 billion must trigger a much greater global philanthropic pump and come to compensate for the delays and shortcomings of industrialized countries which have not really kept all their promises of aid to the poorest countries. More concerned than they were to prepare their economies for the post-pandemic. However, it would be very interesting for the G7 countries to look in the direction of China, which is taking a big lead by investing heavily in energy projects in developing countries for more than ten years; $ 20 billion for the years 2019 and 2020 alone according to The American Enterprise Institute.

The energy transition is a sine qua non condition for effective climate action. It requires considerable sums. That is why all initiatives such as that of Ikea and Rockefeller are welcome.