Energy and Climate Change Branch
Energy is closely linked with key contemporary global challenges the world faces – social development and poverty alleviation, environmental degradation and climate change and food security – and is therefore a defining issue of our time.
UNIDO, as one of the lead agencies in the field of energy, is taking up the challenge, through its integrated energy-related services which include:
- Providing access to modern energy services for the poor through rural energy for productive use with emphasis on renewable energy projects.
- Increasing productivity and competitiveness through improving industrial energy efficiency projects.
- Reducing GHG emissions through capacity building projects for climate change in general and Kyoto Protocol mechanisms in particular.
The responsibility of UNIDO's Energy and Climate Change Branch is to promote access to energy for productive uses while at the same time supporting patterns of energy use by industry that mitigate climate change and are environmentally sustainable.
This involves promoting energy efficiency and the adoption of renewable energy sources in the formal industrial sector, enhancing energy access primarily in rural areas as the fundamental means to reduce rural poverty, and championing industrial energy perspectives in the global debates about climate change and other energy-related global trends. In addition, the Branch acts as the focal point within UNIDO for UN-Energy and the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC).
