The creation of a new so-called ‘climate fund’ was announced today, which will see the state invest in taking Danish ‘green’ energy technology to developing countries.
The government is providing the fund with its first 150 million kroner, while private investors are anticipated to help the fund reach its goal of about 700 million kroner by the end of 2013.
The public-private fund will be managed by the Investment Fund for Developing Countries (IFU), which has so far invested 100 billion kroner in 85 different countries.
A wide range of countries, from BRIC nations India and China to poorer countries in Latin American and Africa, are the target of the investment, which aims to help them adapt to climate change.
“Through the fund, we will be able to make a vital contribution to climate investment in the world’s poorest countries that don’t have the resources to meet the challenges,” the development minister, Christian Friis Bach (Radikale), said in a press release.
While these countries will benefit from the technology, the Danish manufacturers of low-carbon and energy efficient technology will also benefit from a boost in orders and the increased spread of their technology around the world.
The installation of wind and solar parks, biogas plants and energy efficiency retrofitting are among the kinds of investments the fund anticipates it will make.
“I think we’re develop an innovative fund which, through public and private co-operation, will make investments in developing countries,” the climate minister, Martin Lidegaard (Radikale), said.
One of the pledges made at the climate conference held in Copenhagen in 2009, the COP15, was that 700 billion kroner of ‘climate-friendly’ investment would be made in developing countries so long as the developing countries also made efforts to reduce their carbon emissions.
The International Energy Agency has highlighted how public funds alone will not be sufficient to meet the necessary investments needed to maintain a low-carbon global economy that can keep warming within two degrees of pre-industrial times.
