Public-Private Roundtables at the Sixth Clean Energy Ministerial

The Clean Energy Ministerial (CEM) is a high-level forum for the world’s major and forward-leaning countries to promote policies and share best practices with the goal of accelerating the transition to a global clean energy economy. The CEM is voluntary and collaborative, enabling countries to work together to implement their self-determined clean energy goals and create opportunities to increase ambition over time. As an action-oriented forum, the CEM brings together high-level energy policymakers, private sector leaders, technical experts, and project implementers for decision making, implementation, and market-driven solutions.

Many of today’s breakthroughs in the energy sector came about through government-sponsored research. Governments also provide policy signals, incentives, capacity building, and other tools to drive progress. It is the private sector that takes technologies to market and implements solutions. Engagement of the private sector is an essential component of the CEM to ensure tangible, ambitious outcomes are achieved. Meeting the challenge of transitioning to a global clean energy economy requires all actors—the private sector, governments, civil society, investors, and other stakeholders—working together to leverage respective strengths and resources. The private sector and other stakeholders are engaged in many aspects of the year-round initiatives that are operational through the CEM. Participation in the roundtables that are convened each year during the annual ministerial meetings provides an opportunity to engage in high-level discussion and bring knowledge, expertise, and perspective to particularly topical issues and challenges.

The sixth Clean Energy Ministerial (CEM6) featured six public–private roundtables on key clean energy topics:

1. Accelerating Energy Productivity
2. Sustainable Urban Energy Systems
3. Achieving a Social Licence for Clean Energy Deployment
4. Finance for Clean Energy Access
5. Power System Transformation and the Smart Utility of the Future
6. Public–Private Consortia for Advanced Clean Energy Technology Research

This year’s roundtable participants included energy ministers, global business leaders, entrepreneurs, experts from laboratories and academia, and leaders from civil society organizations. In the two-hour small-group discussions, participants clarified barriers to progress and identified potential solutions in each of the topic areas. To prepare all the participants for the discussion, extensive background information on each topic was shared in advance. That information is available online at www.cleanenergyministerial.org/CEM6Roundtables.

The following sections of this report provide highlights from the six roundtable discussions.