• Transforming Ideas Into Action
• Combating Climate Change
  • Why Climate Change?
  • Our Approach
  • Cities
  • Building Retrofit
  • Waste
  • Outdoor Lighting
  • Project 2°
  • Climate Positive
  • Transportation
  • Clean Energy
  • Solar Energy
  • Carbon Capture and Storage
  • Forests
  • Measuring Carbon
  • Financing
  • Project Design
  • What We've Accomplished
  • News and Media
  • Contacting CCI
• Treating HIV/AIDS & Malaria
• Fighting Childhood Obesity
• Promoting Economic Opportunity
• Creating Sustainable Development in Africa
• Enabling Sustainable Development

Clean Energy

Fossil fuels are the source of most of our energy today. They are responsible for about 60 percent of global greenhouse gases, largely due to the generation of electricity and heat. As a big part the climate change problem, energy use must also be part of its solution. Even with more efficient use of energy worldwide, however, global energy demand is set to increase dramatically.

So we need cleaner – and greater – sources of energy. But what are our options?

Our Approach

The Clinton Climate Initiative’s (CCI) Clean Energy team began to address this issue in 2007 through extensive research and consultation with industry experts around the world. Our conclusions are clear and pragmatic: we must reduce emissions from the use of fossil fuels as urgently as we must develop viable renewable energy solutions.

The logic is simple. Coal and other fossil fuels will continue to provide most of our energy in the coming years because they are cheap and plentiful. Many alternative energy sources hold promise but lack capacity, delivering just 30 percent of global power generation today, and only 2 percent when excluding hydro and nuclear power.

Maintaining this ratio as energy consumption increases will require ambitious growth across multiple platforms, including solar, wind, hydro, nuclear and geothermal, among others. Any strategy to reduce greenhouse gas emissions must therefore deal with the reality of fossil fuel use and the necessity for renewable energy sources in equal measure.

What is CCI doing?

CCI has focused its initial efforts on two low-carbon technologies in the power sector: carbon capture and storage (CCS), which isolates CO₂ emissions from power plants and other industrial facilities, and concentrating solar power (CSP), which harnesses the sun’s heat to run conventional turbines or engines. Both have the potential to generate clean energy on a significant scale but are considered immature technologies and require large and coordinated investment.

We aim to deliver large-scale demonstration projects around the world that will prove the viability of these technologies, attract investment, reduce costs, and accelerate commercial deployment. We partner with governments and other key stakeholders to make this happen.

The CCI Clean Energy team

Our Clean Energy team plays a leading role on projects that pave the way for radical reductions in greenhouse gas emissions, and support and inform emerging carbon policies. We leverage significant energy-sector, strategic consulting and investment banking experience, providing invaluable analysis and advice to our partners. As objective and independent actors, we are able to do so credibly and effectively, operating behind the scenes to bring together the necessary parties to produce results, while remaining focused on the big picture of reducing greenhouse gasses and making a significant impact in the fight against climate change.