In the latest episode of our official podcast 50 Shades of Green, we're diving deep into climate finance - how governments are paying for and facilitating climate action.
Green Banks
In our first segment, Climate Group's Gillian Ertel speaks with Kaitlin Butler, Vice President of NY Green Bank, on how green bank investments accelerate clean energy and renewable infrastructure deployment to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Kaitlin and Gillian discuss the role of green banks in the climate financing process, and how NY Green Bank finances and empowers businesses and organizations to make a difference across a variety of sectors including building decarbonization, energy storage, clean transportation, and community distributed generation. For example, the bank works with companies like Parity Inc, a remote HVAC management company, to finance deployment of its software and improve energy efficiency.
Kaitlin and Gillian also discuss some of the challenges that go into financing these projects - including predevelopment and interconnection loans to finance clean energy. NineDot Energy's $50 million transaction to finance interconnection of distributed battery energy storage throughout New York State is a prime example of how the bank has been able to overcome these challenges and commit $2 billion to clean energy and sustainable infrastructure projects, with over $8 billion mobilized in total project costs—resulting in 48.5 million metric tons of CO2e avoided.
Check out the full list of NY Green Bank's current impact and portfolio here.
Kaitlin Butler on the mission of green banks.
COP29 Impacts and Outcomes
In our next segment, Gillian continues the conversation with Champa Patel, Executive Director of Governments & Policy at Climate Group and Toby Walker, our Senior Manager, International Advocacy, on all things COP29, specifically the impact of the UN's annual climate conference and what to expect ahead of COP30 in Brazil.
Then, Gillian closes out the episode with Nehmat Kaur, Climate Group's Director of the Under2 Coalition and Subnational Governments on the impact cities, states and regions can have in the fight against climate change. For more in-depth insights into the UN's annual climate conference, check out their blog post COP29: Parties fail to deliver, but local governments push on.
Champa Patel on the efforts of businesses and subnationals to meet Paris Agreement goals.
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