US Energy: U.S. Secretary of Energy Advances America’s Commitment to Reaching Net Zero Global Emissions and Combatting Climate Change at COP27

This week, U.S. Secretary of Energy Jennifer M. Granholm traveled to Sharm El-Sheikh, Egypt for the 27th Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (COP27). The Secretary joined the United States delegation at a critical moment for clean energy and global climate action, launching new partnerships and programs. Over the course of three days, the Secretary participated in a series of bilateral and multilateral meetings with international counterparts along with industry and civil society leaders and, strengthened strategic collaboration, reaffirmed America’s commitment to a just energy transition at home and abroad, and promoted clean energy innovation and deployment to lower costs for consumers around the globe.

The Secretary kicked off her first day in the U.S. Pavilion showcasing this year’s achievements from Net Zero World (NZW), the Department of Energy’s (DOE) signature program to accelerate the global transition to net-zero emissions while enhancing economic prosperity launched last year at COP26 in Glasgow, Scotland. The event highlighted the first in a series of reports that summarizes modeling of partner countries’ energy trajectories and systems, which can help guide government decision makers to make informed climate and energy policy and investment decisions for the transition to a net-zero future. NZW partners include Argentina, Indonesia, Chile, Nigeria, Indonesia, Ukraine, and host country Egypt. Examples of country specific work included Indonesia’s work on island energy transition to enable decarbonization at the scale of thousands of their islands; Chile’s work on coal transition, and market analysis of district heating; and Nigeria’s work on alternative carbon market designs, and carbon capture and sequestration. The Secretary also announced a call for applications for a new Net Zero World women’s leadership program and welcomed two new partners – Singapore and Thailand – who will become the foundation of a new Southeast Asia Net Zero World hub. 

To help accelerate a global net-zero future, the Secretary announced the United States joined Mission Innovation’s Net-Zero Industries Mission, which focuses on developing and demonstrating cost-competitive solutions for decarbonizing hard-to-abate energy intensive industries worldwide by 2030. The Mission complements DOE’s Energy Earthshots (TM) Initiative to target the remaining solution points of the most challenging technical problems across our energy economy ongoing work in clean energy breakthroughs. In September, the Department launched its sixth Energy Earthshot, the Industrial Heat Energy Earthshot. Additional DOE efforts in industrial decarbonization include the opening of a new Industrial Efficiency and Decarbonization Office, the creation of the G7 Industrial Decarbonization Agenda, and joining the Clean Energy Ministerial’s Industrial Deep Decarbonization Initiative.

With hydrogen serving as a versatile fuel for decarbonizing electricity generation and industrial applications, such as in buildings and manufacturing, DOE, in collaboration with the governments of Japan and the United Kingdom, announced the winners of the H2 Twin Cities 2022 program. Launched by the United States at COP26, the H2 Twin Cities is a global program under the Clean Energy Ministerial’ s Hydrogen Initiative to connect cities and communities around the world to deploy clean hydrogen solutions.

The winners of the H2 Twin Cities 2022 are:

A Mentor-Mentee H2 Twin Cities partnership where the U.S. city of Lancaster, CA, and Namie Town in Japan will serve as mentors to Hawai’i County, Hawaii sharing lessons learned and collectively accelerating progress in clean hydrogen.
A Sibling H2 Twin Cities partnership where Aberdeen, United Kingdom, and Kobe, Japan, will collaborate as sibling cities to promote clean hydrogen growth opportunities locally.
Additional DOE announcements made at COP27 to advance climate and clean energy action include:

International Announcements

Launching Mission Innovation Carbon Dioxide Removal (CDR) Launchpad – A coalition of countries launched Mission Innovation’s Carbon Dioxide Removal (CDR) Launchpad, a global effort to advance CDR projects for negative emissions. Members include Canada, the European Commission, Japan, Norway, the United Kingdom, and the United States. Each member has committed to build at least one pilot or demonstration scale CDR project by 2025, contribute to a Launchpad goal of providing at least $100 million collectively by 2025 to support CDR pilots and demonstrations globally, and provide in-kind support to advance measurement, reporting, and verification efforts. The CDR Launchpad is the first ‘sprint’ of the Mission Innovation CDR Mission, which was launched at COP26 last year. LEARN more and WATCH here.
Driving toward Zero-Emission Medium-and Heavy-Duty Vehicles – Secretary Granholm signed a global Memorandum of Understanding to advance Zero-Emission Medium and Heavy-Duty Vehicles (ZE-MHDV). This MOU leverages the Biden-Harris Administration’s existing whole-of-government approach to address the climate crisis, including an interagency agreement between the U.S. Departments of Energy, Transportation, Housing & Urban Development, and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency with the goal of creating a comprehensive blueprint for decarbonizing the transportation sector. In joining the ZE-MHDV MOU, the administration will leverage this existing collaboration to drive toward these goals and engage our international partners. Thanks to the billions of dollars in clean transportation investments provided by President Biden’s Agenda, the United States is well-positioned to take a leading role in the global clean transportation U.S. engagement and participation working towards the MOU ambition can help catalyze global investment in clean MHDV technologies. This non-binding MOU is part of the Drive to Zero Campaign of the Electric Vehicles Initiative (EVI) under the Clean Energy Ministerial (CEM.)
Decarbonizing Cement with Carbon Capture, Utilization, and Storage (CCUS) – The Department is partnering with governments and major cement companies to join a global public-private commitment to scale up CCUS in the cement sector. Organizations will collaborate on technical, economic, and social dimensions of early cement CCUS projects to show how the field can develop rapidly, effectively, and responsibly. This event brought together key players in this area to discuss how to accelerate this momentum and strengthen collaboration. LEARN more
Launching the Africa Centre of Excellence for Carbon Management Technology and Innovation – In partnership with the Government of Nigeria, DOE announced a new Africa Centre of Excellence for Carbon Management Technology and Innovation, which will accelerate the de-risking and adoption of innovations essential to meeting decarbonization goals in Nigeria and other countries across the continent. Hosted by Nigeria, the Centre will serve as a resource for developing and deploying carbon management technologies across the energy, industrial, agricultural, and marine sectors, as well as for developing the workforce necessary to that deployment. WATCH here.
Establishing a Clean Energy Training Center with Ghana – DOE, in partnership with Ghana plans to establish a regional hub on civil nuclear cooperation and nuclear-renewable integration. The facility will support workforce development, education and training in virtual and in-person settings.
Domestic Announcements

Announcing 2023 Energy Earthshots Summits – To meet the ambitious targets set in the Department’s Energy Earthshots, DOE will hold summit events for the three recently announced Earthshots (Enhanced Geothermal, Floating Offshore Wind, and Industrial Heat) with the goal of leveraging diverse expertise and talent at American universities, businesses, and national laboratories through new partnerships and new funding opportunities.
Funding Long-Duration Energy Storage Demonstrations – The Department will support Long-Duration Energy Storage (LDES) demonstration projects capable of delivering electricity for 10 to 24 hours or longer to support a low-cost, reliable, carbon-free electric grid with nearly $350 million in funding under President Biden’s Bipartisan Infrastructure Law. The LDES Demonstrations Program will be managed by DOE’s Office of Clean Energy Demonstrations and will support up to 11 demonstration projects that will contribute to the Department-wide goal of reducing the cost of grid-scale energy storage by 90% within the decade.
Establishing Energy Efficiency Revolving Loan Fund Capitalization Grant Program – This DOE grant program will provide $250 million in capitalization grants to states to establish a revolving loan fund to help it administer loans and grants for energy efficiency audits, upgrades, and retrofits to increase energy efficiency and improve the comfort of buildings.