The Urban Institute Ireland of the University College of Dublin (UCD) is conducting a project for the European Commission entitled “Transatlantic Opportunities for Meeting Global Challenges in Energy Efficiency and Low Carbon Technology”. The project involves, inter alia, the writing of seven research papers that look at different aspects of energy efficiency in the EU and the US. The Ecologic Institute contributes a research paper on the differences between EU and US funding and funding mechanisms for energy efficiency projects in emerging economies.

Enhancing energy efficiency in emerging countries is important both from a climate change point of view and a socio-economic point of view. Improving energy efficiency is a cost-effective way of mitigating climate change; at the same time reducing energy consumption may make costly expansion of energy infrastructure unnecessary. Funding climate change mitigation and adaptation is also an important topic in international climate change negotiations, but the funding landscape is fragmented and keeping track of financial flows is very difficult.

Against this background, the research paper, authored by Christiane Gerstetter and Dominic Marcellino, provides an overview of channels for funding energy efficiency measures in developing countries in the EU and the US. The paper also looks at multilateral funds. The EU Global Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy Fund (GEEREF), the US Energy and Climate Partnership of the Americas and climate change funding provided by the Global Environment Facility (GEF) are assessed more in-depth.