“The 20 largest countries equal 80 per cent of emissions,” John Kerry told billmckibben, in a conversation about his plan to help lead a global transition to clean energy. “If we can get those 20 countries to cut way down, we can win the battle.”
some campaigners who are interested in clearer answers on compensation for the ongoing losses in the developing world. But Kerry returns again and again to the question of where to find the capital for large-scale clean energy in those nations. The I.R.A. is designed to jumpstart domestic renewable energy by making financing available on easier terms: if a solar-farm developer can get a tax credit from the government, it’s much simpler to persuade a bank to put up the rest of the money.
In essence, Kerry is consumed by “concessionary finance”—projects in which governments or charities remove much of the risk so that risk-averse private capital will supply the bulk of the investment. Right now, that’s difficult to negotiate.
These are not, in fact, new ideas—Germany has a large fund that does this kind of de-risking work, which helped with a recent deal to get Egypt moving more quickly toward renewables. But the United States has never agreed to such funding, and the current outlook for thedoesn’t improve the prospects that it will. “That $11.4 billion that Biden is requesting has to be congressionally approved, and that’s not easy,” Kerry said. “So we’re also looking at several other ways right now.