At COP 28, the BCSE coalition is committed to work with governments, businesses, and stakeholders to:

• Support a Paris Agreement global stock take (GST) outcome that presents a positive, credible, and ambitious pathway for the global energy transition. This energy transition roadmap should aim to increase the share of renewables, invest heavily in energy efficiency, and create new pathways for emerging decarbonization technologies. Such technologies include carbon capture and storage, energy storage, hydrogen, renewable natural gas, sustainable transportation solutions, and more. See below for more on the Global Stock Take.
• Identify ways to optimize technology deployment and public and private international finance flows to unlock bottlenecks in the energy transition and to increase readiness and resilience of communities, especially those most vulnerable to climate impacts. See below for more detail on finance flows and the energy transition.
• Have critical conversations about implementation of climate solutions – the challenges and opportunities faced by the private sector – to build trust and pathways forward on equity, community engagement, economic development, and transparency and reporting.

Learn more in BCSE’s COP 28 position paper.

Established in 1992 in advance of the first Earth Summit or United Nations Conference on Environment and Development (UNCED), BCSE has been an accredited business observer to the United Nations for more than 30 years. 

BCSE has led a delegation to each of the three UNCED Summits (1992, 2002, 2012) and has had a presence at nearly all the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) annual Conference of the Parties (COP) sessions and most inter-sessional meetings.

BCSE attends the COP with these guiding objectives to:

• Ensure a broad portfolio of decarbonizing clean energy and energy efficiency solutions are utilized to close the global emissions gap and to meet national mitigation and adaptation goals.
• Share implementation experiences, challenges, and opportunities – from community engagement to technology deployment – with governments and stakeholders.
• Discuss the important role of policy certainty, market-based mechanisms, finance, capacity building, technology transfer, monitoring, reporting and verification, and partnership with the private sector to foster greater climate action.

The day for BCSE begins with preparation and review of the latest news out of COP and the UNFCCC Daily Program, as well as a check-in at the daily business and industry NGO (BINGO) briefing hosted by the International Chamber of Commerce to get oriented for the day.

Throughout the two weeks of COP, BCSE’s delegation works to support the international negotiations by advocating for ambitious global commitments to advance the clean energy transition, and demonstrating to countries and civil society the solutions the private sector can provide. Members of BCSE’s delegation provide clean energy, energy efficiency, and decarbonization technologies and services that help countries and communities reduce global greenhouse gas emissions, increase resilience, and meet their climate action goals. Learn more about BCSE’s advocacy objectives at COP 28 here.

Although day-by-day schedules vary, BCSE’s delegation engages in this advocacy at COP by:

• Meeting with U.S. and foreign national and sub-national governments to share the importance of using policy tools to broaden the market for clean energy and demonstrate how the private sector can help the public sector achieve its climate mitigation and adaptation goals.
• Meeting with U.S. and international civil society stakeholders to listen and learn and to identify ways to work together to accelerate the energy transition.
• Convening global clean energy advocates to discuss strategies for advancing the clean energy transition.
• Connecting our members to share their business views at side events, exhibits, press conferences, and other events held in the blue zone.
• Attending conferences held outside of the blue zone to network and share our views.

The energy transition is an economic opportunity to shift how we generate and consume energy from high-emission to low- and zero-emission resources. The clean energy and energy efficiency technology solutions needed to do so are available today.  

BCSE advocates for the deployment of a broad portfolio of solutions that can be adjusted for regional or local circumstances. We are in a critical stage of implementation, of aligning market and policy signals to deploy and build a positive feedback loop that ensures both political and public support for greater investment and growth.

The tricky part is that the transition takes time. The good news is that the pace is picking up, even though some may feel it is not fast enough. The reality is that all energy sources need to adapt and evolve if we are to meet our shared decarbonization goals. Communities that are impacted need to be involved in the planning and implementation of the transition. The private sector cannot go it alone.

BCSE works through its advocacy to share the realities of the various layers of the energy transition that need alignment. BCSE’s annual and free publication produced with BloombergNEF, the Sustainable Energy in America Factbook, chronicles the pace of the transition in the United States over the past decades.

Parties to the Paris Agreement are required to undertake a global stock take (GST) every five years to assess collective progress toward the agreement’s long-term mitigation, adaptation, and finance goals. BCSE believes that the GST is an important moment in which the global community can recalibrate and galvanize efforts anew toward specific energy transition goals. Sector specific goals – such as the tripling of renewable energy capacity by 2030, doubling the rate of energy efficiency improvement, or doubling hydrogen production capacity – signal to the market that there is political support and need for both public and private investment into these sectors.

BCSE understands the central role that international finance flows – both public and private – play to advance international cooperation on climate and to deliver emissions reductions on the scale that science demands. In the context of the negotiations under the UNFCCC at COP 28, the discussion amongst governments centers around developed countries providing additional assistance to developing countries, especially those most vulnerable to impacts of the changing climate today. This finance is needed to help countries build out their own capacity and to implement policies and projects that can help meet their mitigation, adaptation, and development-related goals.  

At home in Washington, DC, BCSE is a consistent advocate for the annual appropriations in the U.S. federal budget for international climate and clean energy programs.

BCSE greatly values the long-standing and important leadership role that the United States plays in the global community to support developing countries as they build public and private infrastructure that incorporates American values and generates American opportunities. These investments help to create an enabling legal, financial, and regulatory environment that is needed for U.S. companies to effectively enter and prosper in developing countries. This public finance strengthens U.S. credibility overseas and generates increased market demand for high quality American clean energy and energy efficiency solutions.

BCSE asks Congress to provide continued and robust levels of funding for U.S. bilateral programs for adaptation, renewable energy, and sustainable landscapes; along with contributions to multilateral programs, funds, and intergovernmental institutions with which the United States has established leadership and roles.