Climate Week: Financing Low-Carbon Technologies

The second day at Climate Week NYC focused on strategies for financing large-scale deployment of low-carbon technologies, reports Alt Transport.

The discussion focused on ‘smart’ information and communications technologies (ICTs) already available that could make urban infrastructure more efficient, which were highlighted in the Climate Group’s 2008 report, SMART 2020. The report indicated that ‘smart’ grids, buildings and transport systems could reduce global emissions by 15 percent in 2020.

The Climate Group says this represents a significant proportion of emissions or energy/carbon intensity reduction targets currently on the table: Europe’s 20-20-20 emissions reduction target, India’s 20 to 25 percent emissions intensity target, and China’s 40 to 45 percent carbon intensity target by 2020.

The report says ICT can cut CO2 emissions by greater than the current annual emissions of either the U.S. or China through measures such as tele-working, video-conferencing, and e-commerce, reports Alt Transport. ICT can also have a much larger impact with the implementation of smart electricity grids, and smart industrial motor systems.

Alan Salzman, CEO and Managing Partner, VantagePoint Venture Partners said that the only way to implement global change is by driving performance and reducing costs so a product is affordable, reports Alt Transport. As an example cited in the article, electric vehicles will only be accessible when people can buy one without thinking about the sticker price.

Other Climate Week news can be found here.