1,720,977 research outputs found
Scaling Investment in Renewable Energy Generation to Achieve Sustainable Development Goals 7 (Affordable and Clean Energy) and 13 (Climate Action) and the Paris Agreement: Roadblocks and Drivers
No full textThe zero-carbon energy transition is the solution to the 2022 energy crisis and a fundamental part of the solution to the global climate crisis. But there are relatively low levels of investment in renewable energy in developing countries, hindering their achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and contribution to the Paris Agreement goals. There is therefore an urgent need to scale public and private finance for investment in renewable electricity generation, network infrastructure, and end-use sectors.
Five main roadblocks in the way are identified:
Developing countries lack the necessary access to low-cost capital to invest in renewables.
There is a lack of investment in grid and storage infrastructure and a lack of solutions addressing the off-taker risk.
There are insufficient domestic regulatory frameworks for renewable electricity and ill-designed incentives as well as an under-developed institutional capability.
Existing regulatory frameworks—in law, contract, and investment treaties—can limit developing country governments’ policy space to implement and adapt policies to promote and leverage investment in renewables.
Developing countries’ national energy roadmaps and master plans are either non-existent or ill-designed.
The CCSI reports not only identify these roadblocks, but also provide solutions to drive investment in renewables.
The report sheds light on the five roadblocks and provides recommendations for the drivers of investment in renewables while distilling solutions from international experience. It clarifies where international and national efforts should urgently be focused to address the deterrents of investment in renewables and enable zero-carbon energy security and prosperity.We thank the following reviewers for their helpful comments and guidance on this report: Jérôme Schmitt, Miguel Muñoz Rodriguez, Gonzalo Saenz De Miera, Marco Serena, and Bruce Usher. We were also guided and supported enormously by Lisa Sachs throughout the project, from its inception to its final stages. We would like to thank Jack Arnold, who spent countless days fixing (and refixing) the footnotes in the report; Ethan Henry Goldstein, Yuko Hashimoto, Aarushi Sahu, and Duoye Xu for their invaluable contributions to the design, analysis, and research of this report and the CCSI–E3G survey; and Jérôme Schmitt and Tom Mitro, who were instrumental at the design phase of the CCSI–E3G survey. We were privileged to have had insightful conversations on various topics throughout the research and writing of this report with Jérôme Schmitt, Lou Wells, Joe Bell, George Kahale III, Haydn Palliser, and the AES team. We also want to thank Susan McGregor, who helped us decipher the data and extract important conclusions from it. Frank Qiankun, Zachary Hanson, and Reed Vettel kindly helped in the dissemination of the survey. The CCSI–E3G survey would not have been possible without the support of E3G, especially Ignacio Arroniz Velasco and Lisa Fischer. And finally, we would like to thank all the industry expert respondents who completed the survey, especially those that went the extra mile to speak to us virtually for follow-up questions. Thank you so muc
Scaling Investment in Renewable Energy Generation to Achieve Sustainable Development Goals 7 (Affordable and Clean Energy) and 13 (Climate Action) and the Paris Agreement: Roadblocks and Drivers
No full textThe zero-carbon energy transition is the solution to the 2022 energy crisis and a fundamental part of the solution to the global climate crisis. But there are relatively low levels of investment in renewable energy in developing countries, hindering their achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and contribution to the Paris Agreement goals. There is therefore an urgent need to scale public and private finance for investment in renewable electricity generation, network infrastructure, and end-use sectors.
Five main roadblocks in the way are identified:
Developing countries lack the necessary access to low-cost capital to invest in renewables.
There is a lack of investment in grid and storage infrastructure and a lack of solutions addressing the off-taker risk.
There are insufficient domestic regulatory frameworks for renewable electricity and ill-designed incentives as well as an under-developed institutional capability.
Existing regulatory frameworks—in law, contract, and investment treaties—can limit developing country governments’ policy space to implement and adapt policies to promote and leverage investment in renewables.
Developing countries’ national energy roadmaps and master plans are either non-existent or ill-designed.
The CCSI reports not only identify these roadblocks, but also provide solutions to drive investment in renewables.
The report sheds light on the five roadblocks and provides recommendations for the drivers of investment in renewables while distilling solutions from international experience. It clarifies where international and national efforts should urgently be focused to address the deterrents of investment in renewables and enable zero-carbon energy security and prosperity.We thank the following reviewers for their helpful comments and guidance on this report: Jérôme Schmitt, Miguel Muñoz Rodriguez, Gonzalo Saenz De Miera, Marco Serena, and Bruce Usher. We were also guided and supported enormously by Lisa Sachs throughout the project, from its inception to its final stages. We would like to thank Jack Arnold, who spent countless days fixing (and refixing) the footnotes in the report; Ethan Henry Goldstein, Yuko Hashimoto, Aarushi Sahu, and Duoye Xu for their invaluable contributions to the design, analysis, and research of this report and the CCSI–E3G survey; and Jérôme Schmitt and Tom Mitro, who were instrumental at the design phase of the CCSI–E3G survey. We were privileged to have had insightful conversations on various topics throughout the research and writing of this report with Jérôme Schmitt, Lou Wells, Joe Bell, George Kahale III, Haydn Palliser, and the AES team. We also want to thank Susan McGregor, who helped us decipher the data and extract important conclusions from it. Frank Qiankun, Zachary Hanson, and Reed Vettel kindly helped in the dissemination of the survey. The CCSI–E3G survey would not have been possible without the support of E3G, especially Ignacio Arroniz Velasco and Lisa Fischer. And finally, we would like to thank all the industry expert respondents who completed the survey, especially those that went the extra mile to speak to us virtually for follow-up questions. Thank you so muc
How the International Investment Law Regime Undermines Access to Justice for Investment-Affected Stakeholders
No full textFor over a decade now, the international investment law regime, which includes investment treaties and their central pillar, the investor-state dispute settlement (ISDS) mechanism, has been facing sustained calls for reform. These have largely centered on the concerns regarding the high costs of ISDS, the restrictions placed by the investment treaty regime on the right—or duty—of states to regulate in the public interest, and the questionable benefits arising from these treaties in the first place. Several states have taken proactive measures: some have revised investment treaty standards to better protect their regulatory powers; others have introduced new approaches to investment promotion, protection, and dispute settlement that more closely align with their sustainable development objectives; and some states have withdrawn from the investment treaty regime altogether. In addition, reforms to the regime are taking place at the multilateral level within the United Nations Commission on International Trade Law (UNCITRAL), the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), the World Trade Organization (WTO), and through other regional fora.
Despite being the subject of extensive and prolonged public debate for several years, these reforms have continued to reinforce the binary structure of the regime. This structure restricts the focus of investment relations solely to investors and host states, disregarding the actual or potential impacts of investment projects, relations, disputes and awards on the rights and interests of other impacted stakeholders. In particular, large-scale, land-based investment projects involve a broad network of people and relations, and often intersect with local communities whose social identity, way of life, and livelihoods are intimately connected to the land and natural resources at stake. It is this category of investments, which result in the creation of a new “project” with a large land footprint, that is the topic of this paper. The consequences of these types of investments can be significant, as they often lead to land expropriations, negative human health consequences, water pollution, air contamination, deforestation, or shifts in migration patterns within the area, thereby impacting the rights and interests of people in these communities and the environment more broadly
How the International Investment Law Regime Undermines Access to Justice for Investment-Affected Stakeholders
Get PDFFor over a decade now, the international investment law regime, which includes investment treaties and their central pillar, the investor-state dispute settlement (ISDS) mechanism, has been facing sustained calls for reform. These have largely centered on the concerns regarding the high costs of ISDS, the restrictions placed by the investment treaty regime on the right—or duty—of states to regulate in the public interest, and the questionable benefits arising from these treaties in the first place. Several states have taken proactive measures: some have revised investment treaty standards to better protect their regulatory powers; others have introduced new approaches to investment promotion, protection, and dispute settlement that more closely align with their sustainable development objectives; and some states have withdrawn from the investment treaty regime altogether. In addition, reforms to the regime are taking place at the multilateral level within the United Nations Commission on International Trade Law (UNCITRAL), the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), the World Trade Organization (WTO), and through other regional fora.
Despite being the subject of extensive and prolonged public debate for several years, these reforms have continued to reinforce the binary structure of the regime. This structure restricts the focus of investment relations solely to investors and host states, disregarding the actual or potential impacts of investment projects, relations, disputes and awards on the rights and interests of other impacted stakeholders. In particular, large-scale, land-based investment projects involve a broad network of people and relations, and often intersect with local communities whose social identity, way of life, and livelihoods are intimately connected to the land and natural resources at stake. It is this category of investments, which result in the creation of a new “project” with a large land footprint, that is the topic of this paper. The consequences of these types of investments can be significant, as they often lead to land expropriations, negative human health consequences, water pollution, air contamination, deforestation, or shifts in migration patterns within the area, thereby impacting the rights and interests of people in these communities and the environment more broadly
Constructing and Contesting Hegemony: Counter-hegemonic Resistance to the International Investment Law Regime
No full textI examine five international investment cases that embrace the neoliberal vision. This economic model provides a new, contested space between the construction of hegemonic globalisations from above and the contestation of these globalisations from below. The first objective is to describe this space. Each ends the same way: the exit of an unwanted foreign investor after intense social mobilisation. The second objective is to show that counter-hegemonic victories are difficult to achieve: the regime relegates the voice of the subaltern to an inconsequential role, limits public interest state projects that may interfere with investor rights, and often includes a compensatory promise to foreign investors irrespective of the host state’s fiscal capacity. The third objective is to demonstrate the ambivalent role of the state in promoting such neoliberal projects, which necessitate that it adopt a more active role in either policing investment or policing society.MAS
Constructing and Contesting Hegemony: Counter-hegemonic Resistance to the International Investment Law Regime
No full textI examine five international investment cases that embrace the neoliberal vision. This economic model provides a new, contested space between the construction of hegemonic globalisations from above and the contestation of these globalisations from below. The first objective is to describe this space. Each ends the same way: the exit of an unwanted foreign investor after intense social mobilisation. The second objective is to show that counter-hegemonic victories are difficult to achieve: the regime relegates the voice of the subaltern to an inconsequential role, limits public interest state projects that may interfere with investor rights, and often includes a compensatory promise to foreign investors irrespective of the host state’s fiscal capacity. The third objective is to demonstrate the ambivalent role of the state in promoting such neoliberal projects, which necessitate that it adopt a more active role in either policing investment or policing society.MAS
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The Role of Investment Treaties and Investor–State Dispute Settlement (ISDS) in Renewable Energy Investments
Get PDFAchieving our global goals of universal access to clean energy and averting a climate crisis will require a mass scale-up of investments in renewable energy infrastructure, redirecting capital from carbon intensive energy and transport systems. The International Renewable Energy Agency estimates that the transformation of the energy system alone will need cumulative investments to reach USD 110 trillion by 2050 to keep the rise in global temperatures to well below 2°C and towards 1.5°C during this century. Of that amount, over 80% will need to be invested in renewables, energy efficiency, end-use electrification, and power grids and flexibility.
The private sector and private finance will play an important role in scaling renewable energy generation, transmission, and storage. Much of this investment will be cross-border, as capital and technology must flow to developing and emerging economies to bridge the widening regional differences in the rate and amount of renewable energy investments.
To help accelerate a shift of finance into renewable investments by foreign companies, it is critical to address the key constraints that hinder the scale-up of renewable investment, as well as the key determinants that would accelerate the necessary capital for a sustainable energy transition. Understanding these factors is a critical input to policy-making across a range of government agencies and functions, for development finance institutions, and for other international organizations
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The Role and Relevance of Investment Treaties in Promoting Renewable Energy Investments
No full textCo-authors Ladan Mehranvar and Lisa Sachs discuss the effect of investment treaties as catalysts for critical investments in the energy transition, with a particular focus on the Spanish renewable energy cases. The book chapter, "The Role and Relevance of Investment Treaties in Promoting Renewable Energy Investments," is featured in Investment Arbitration and Climate Change, published by Kluwer Law International B.V
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Breaking Free: Strategies for Governments on Terminating Investment Treaties and Removing ISDS Provisions
Get PDFOur report, "Breaking Free: Strategies for Governments on Terminating Investment Treaties and Removing ISDS Provisions," is a guidebook for government officials and policymakers on the reform or exit of the investment treaty regime that is currently impeding climate action and other national and global goals. The report includes the following: (1) strategies for exiting or reforming investment treaties and the legal consequences that follow; (2) eliminating ISDS exposure in national investment laws and contracts; (3) withdrawing from the International Centre for Settlement of Investment Disputes (ICSID) Convention and the minimal legal consequences of such action; (4) examples of country- and regional-specific processes that have led to the review and termination (or reform) of investment treaties to date; and (5) proposed text for a multilateral instrument on the termination of treaties, amending to remove investment protections in free trade agreements, and amending to remove ISDS provisions from investment treaties
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