Blog

NREL identified ten climate finance levers that could be applied to USAID programs to increase the scale of investment in clean energy and energy efficiency in partner countries.

• 02/28/2024
• Sophie Schrader

Over the course of 2022, Climatelinks has shared dozens of videos and webinars touching on a variety of themes. Check out some videos you may have missed!

• 12/19/2022
• Maggie Allegar

Last year at the 26th UN Climate Change Conference, USAID committed to partnering with countries to reduce, avoid, or sequester at least six billion metric tons of global greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions by 2030. (Preventing six billion metric tons of GHG emissions is the equivalent of taking 100 million cars off roads for a decade, or roughly the amount of GHG emissions the United States emits each year). After making the commitment, USAID then codified it as one of its six ambitious goals in the Agency-wide 2022-2030 Climate Strategy. 

• 11/15/2022
• Claire Hubert

With a presence in 100 countries and more than 10,000 staff globally, USAID has a unique and timely opportunity to help reshape the renewable energy ecosystem and promote the adoption of a circular economy approach to renewable energy, plastics, and other sectors – helping to shift the balance of natural resource use for all our stuff from one of waste and disposability to one of sustainability while providing and creating new economic opportunities.

• 10/24/2022
• Gillian Caldwell

Electric utilities in developing countries are vital agents in the fight against the changing climate

• 04/27/2022
• Julia De la Cruz , Elena Ivanova, Kathy Julik-Heine, Abbey Pizel

This blog is the second part in an Editor’s Pick Series highlighting USAID’s regional approaches to climate and development. The first part of the series featured Climatelinks blogs that reflect these efforts, and this second part features resources and projects with a regional focus.

• 02/09/2022
• Sophie Schrader

As clean energy production accelerates, the annual need for critical metals could outpace reserves and result in potential supply chain disruptions, endangering the transition to a clean energy economy.

• 02/03/2022
• Amanda Valenta, Andrew Fang, Monica Raphita Simarmata

In 2021, Climatelinks featured a wide array of USAID’s climate-related work through its blogs. The Climatelinks blog acts as a resource for the global Climatelinks community and serves as a storehouse for information in the form of lessons learned, success stories, newsletter recaps, and report summaries. 

• 12/28/2021
• Steve Hardeman

Over the course of 2021, the Climatelinks community contributed over 140 blogs on topics from youth climate action to a new wave of private investment for climate solutions.

• 12/09/2021
• Sophie Schrader

In July, Climatelinks explored the important health and climate impacts of air pollution. As the world’s largest environmental health risk, air pollution contributes to approximately 6.7 million premature deaths each year. This is a significant development challenge, as low and middle income countries are at the highest risk for the greatest health burdens from poor air quality.

• 08/24/2021
• Climatelinks

On April 23, 2021, the White House called for a Global Climate Ambition Initiative to “support developing countries in... implementing their nationally determined contributions and... enhance and meet their climate goals in ways that further their national development priorities.”

• 06/28/2021
• Andrew Fang, Michael McNeil

Improving energy efficiency is an integral but often-overlooked part of low-emission development (LED) strategies that can help countries reach their climate targets while meeting growing demands for energy.

• 05/05/2021
• Andrew Fang, Michael McNeil, Katie Koerper

Limiting global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius demands a dramatically different power sector – one that helps reduce overall greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions by 7.6 percent globally each year from 2020 to 2030.

• 04/23/2021
• Sophia Peters, Michaela Palmer

When women are able to fully participate and lead in the workforce, we know that businesses prosper. Research shows that gender and ethnically diverse companies outperform industry standards by 25 percent.

• 03/08/2021
• Corinne Hart, Hayley Samu

Open, transparent, and competitive renewable energy procurement, coupled with declining prices for solar and wind technologies, has facilitated billions of dollars of investment at record low prices. According to the Renewables 2020 Global Status Report, 109 countries around the world had held renewable energy auctions by 2019, up from 98 in 2018. Worldwide, auctions have become an emerging best practice to procure least-cost energy.

• 08/04/2020
• Sarah Lawson, Araí Monteforte