Mission Innovation --- May 27-29, 2019 --- Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada

May 21, 2019

Print This Article Share it With Friends

Hosted by the Government of Canada and building on the success of last year’s Ministerial in Malmö, Sweden, MI-4 brings together ministers, business leaders and innovators to share ideas, best practices and to facilitate collaboration towards the development of affordable and sustainable clean energy solutions.

Under the overarching CEM10/MI-4 theme of “accelerating progress towards a clean energy future”, the MI-4 programme will specifically focus on Demonstrating Impact and Raising Ambition.

The programme has been designed to blend traditional plenary sessions with new and innovative approaches that open this important dialogue beyond the usual ministerial setting. Members will have an opportunity to showcase specific innovations and investments and set the course for the coming year, while also creating new partnerships, strengthening existing relationships and learning from a variety of leaders in the global clean energy ecosystem.

The first cohort of MI Champions will also be announced at this year’s Ministerial. Please visit https://www.michampions.net/ to find out more about the MI Champions program.

More details regarding the MI-4 program are available here.

Explore Mission Innovation Solutions, an inspiring collection of over fifty cutting-edge breakthroughs emerging from members’ investments that have the greatest potential to significantly accelerate the delivery of clean and affordable energy by 2020.

Mission Innovation is a global initiative working to accelerate clean energy innovation. The power of innovation – driven by sustained public investment coupled with business leadership – can make clean energy widely affordable and bring fledgling ideas into the mainstream.

Mission Innovation (MI) is a global initiative of 23 countries and the European Commission (on behalf of the European Union). MI was announced at COP21 on November 30, 2015, as world leaders came together in Paris to commit to ambitious efforts to combat climate change. Members committed to:

Seek to double their governmental and/or state-directed clean energy clean energy research, development and demonstration (RD&D) investments over five years.
Work closely with the private sector as it increases its investment in the earlier-stage clean energy companies that emerge from government programs.
Build and improve technology innovation roadmaps and other tools to help in our innovation efforts, to understand where RD&D is already happening, and to identify gaps and opportunities for new kinds of innovation.
Provide, on an annual basis, transparent, easily-accessible information on their respective clean energy RD&D efforts

In addition:

Mission Innovation and the Private Finance Advisory Network (PFAN), are excited to host the Clean Energy Investment Forum, as a side event to MI-4 in Vancouver. Investors from around the world attending will learn first-hand about innovative clean energy projects in low- and middle-income countries.

The large-scale deployment of low carbon, climate resilient technologies required to curb climate change is greatly hindered by limited access to finance and a limited pipeline of investment-ready projects. This is the case particularly in developing countries, where clean energy technologies have the potential to provide affordable, reliable electricity in the areas that are unserved or underserved by national grids. Clean energy and climate technology projects in developing countries often have abundant potential but lack the knowledge and network to push them over the line to financial closure. PFAN aims to solve this problem by bridging the gap between investors and entrepreneurs. It provides guidance to promising projects in developing countries and, once they are bankable and investment-ready, introduces them to investors. It is one of the few actors addressing the barriers small and medium enterprises face in accessing climate finance in developing countries and emerging economies. So far, PFAN has leveraged US$1.4 billion worth of investment in projects that contribute towards global climate change goals.

The PFAN/MI Clean Energy Investment Forum will provide a unique opportunity for investors to meet promising entrepreneurs from around the world and learn first-hand about innovative clean energy projects in low- and middle-income countries.

This event will open with addresses from Frank Des Rosiers, Chair of Mission Innovation and Assistant Deputy Minister at Natural Resources Canada, and Philippe Scholtès, Managing Director of Programme Development and Technical Cooperation at the United Nations Industrial Development Organization (UNIDO), followed by other inspirational guests.

During the Business Plan Competition, the most important part of the PFAN/MI Clean Energy Investment Forum, attending investors will learn about six specially selected innovative projects. These include the world’s first fully women-managed bio-refinery in Belize, a solar-powered water purification business in India, solar mini-grids in rural Nigeria, a Li-Fi lighting and internet company in Ivory Coast, a business offering an Internet of Things Toolkit in South East Asia, as well as an energy efficient radiant heat cooking business in India. The project developers will pitch directly to prospective investors. The pitches will be judged by high-level climate finance experts, including Winnie Odhiambo, Associate Partner at I-DEV International. The best pitch will win the PFAN Global Award.

The Climate Policy Initiative (CPI) reported in 2018 that climate finance is the central issue that will determine the success or failure of the implementation of the Paris Agreement. At this Investment Forum, participants will be able to explore how they can make an impact and help push forward the global sustainable development agenda.

More detailed information regarding the event agenda can be found here.

Anyone interested in attending is welcome to contact Ms Olga Rataj for more information, and to register their interest. We look forward to meeting you at this dynamic and exciting event.

Biofuels particulars:

Our objective: To develop ways to produce, at scale, widely affordable, advanced biofuels for transportation and industrial applications.

Co-leads: Brazil, Canada, China, India
Participants: Australia, European Commission, Finland, France, Indonesia, Italy, Mexico, Netherlands, Norway, Sweden, United Kingdom, United States

Use of fossil fuels in transportation and industrial production contributes up to 35% of global greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. Although sustainable biofuels can have an important role to play in tackling these emissions, many of the most exciting biofuels remain at the pre-commercial stage of development. The Sustainable Biofuels Innovation Challenge aims to accelerate biofuels research, development, and demonstration in order to achieve performance breakthroughs and cost reductions with the potential to substantially lower GHG emissions.

The issue

Advanced, or second generation, biofuels can be produced from non-food biological materials (biomass) such as forest and farming residues and other waste materials, specially grown high yield plants or algae, and refined into fuels for use in transportation or industry.

If managed sustainably, biofuels are a renewable energy resource that can contribute significantly less GHG emissions and other air contaminants than fossil fuels.

If climate targets are to be achieved, especially in the short and medium terms, biofuels have an important contribution to make. One role is the use of biofuels when zero-emitting electrification cannot be implemented practically and at a reasonable cost. For some industrial applications which require high operating temperatures and for some forms of transportation – such as long distance shipping and aviation where the added weight of batteries makes electrification impractical – biofuels are the best near term low-carbon renewable alternative to petroleum fuels.

A key challenge for some countries constraining wider adoption of biofuels is the limited availability of inexpensive biomass, and the high costs of advanced conversion technologies that are at various stages of development. Research and development aimed at accelerating advanced biofuels availability must address key challenges ranging from the sustainable generation and supply of biological feedstocks which takes into account life-cycle impacts and increasing competition for food, feed and material production, to demonstrating the economic feasibility of technologies to produce biofuels that meet current fuel specifications and that can be blended with existing fuels.

The opportunity

The Sustainable Biofuels Challenge Innovation is a key opportunity for governments, researchers and industry to work together on rapidly accelerating research and development, with the goal of achieving performance breakthroughs and cost reductions for large scale production of advanced biofuels.

Increased use of biofuels in transportation and industrial applications will contribute to mitigating climate change in key areas of the global economy. With global action, the International Energy Agency (IEA) projects that biofuels could provide around 30% of all transportation fuels by 2050, thereby avoiding around 2.1 gigatonnes of CO₂emission per year compared to continued use of petroleum-derived fuels. In addition to environmental benefits, biofuels can contribute to energy security by diversifying the energy mix and by providing a renewable energy resource. Finally, the Sustainable Biofuels Innovation Challenge provides opportunities to: accelerate adoption of sustainable practices in agriculture, forestry, and land management; take advantage of mitigation and adaptation practices that are synergistic; and multiply opportunities for economic development by growing the market share of advanced biofuels.

Graph of liquid biofuels production for the USA (940,000 barrels), Brazil (449,000), Germany (68,000), China (59,000), France (50,000), and Canada (36,000) — *Figure: Production of liquid biofuels (barrels per day in 2012) for the largest producing Mission Innovation countries. Source: US Energy Information Administration*

The implementation

This Challenge will build on the existing work of individual countries and international institutions, such as the IEA, to identify and prioritise innovation needs and collaboration opportunities where research and development can result in significant advances in biofuel technologies. To achieve this, participating countries will cooperate and collaborate to help governments, private investors, and researchers accelerate technology development so that advanced biofuels reach global market penetration in transportation and industrial applications. READ MORE