Global Initiative for nature, grids, and renewables launched
The Renewables Grid Initiative (RGI) and the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) launched the Global Initiative for Nature, Grids, and Renewables (GINGR) at COP28, aiming to empower governments, industries and the financial sector to achieve energy, climate and biodiversity targets.
Specifically, the initiative seeks to accelerate deployment of renewables and electricity grids while ensuring the protection and restoration of the natural environment.
GINGR will provide tools and methodologies to measure efficacy of nature positive solutions and monitor and report progress towards agreed targets.
GINGR’s framework will rely on agreed criteria between members, to date including RGI and IUCN, and existing tools and methodologies for assessing impacts on and restoration of nature, such as the Species Threat Abatement and Restoration (STAR) metric and the Integrated Biodiversity Assessment Tool (IBAT) frameworks from IUCN.
GINGR will also collect and showcase best practices, developing a framework for biodiversity management and conservation whilst facilitating a faster roll-out of renewable energy and electricity grids globally.
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Dr Grethel Aguilar, director general of IUCN said in a statement: “It is vital that the transition to renewable energy systems contains protections for nature. That is why we need GINGR, to help ensure the transition helps and not harms the environment and contributes towards nature positive goals.”
Added Antonella Battaglini, CEO of RGI and : “Together we are committed to develop metrics and tools to assess contributions towards nature positive goals from electricity grids, wind and solar energy infrastructure.”
“We will do this together with all interested stakeholders, because this should be a collaborative and not a competitive effort. Together, we can be more efficient and robust and therefore contribute to faster energy, climate and biodiversity security.”
Said Rachel Asante-Owusu, senior programme coordinator Climate Change Team for IUCN: “After over 20 years of work in conservation, I am excited to have now access to unique electricity grid expertise through this alliance with RGI. Together we will demonstrate how to reconcile energy and nature globally.”
Related Knowledge Center: ENERGY BASICS: renewables
Renewable energy sources — once the fuel of the future, then practical in specific, narrow applications — are increasingly economic mainstream sources of power generation. Hydropower was long the mainstay of U.S. renewable electricity generation, although wind power surpassed hydro for the first time in 2019, and solar continues its rapid growth. The continued growth of wind and solar, with their fluctuations, is tied in part to improvements in storage technology: batteries.