The UK and Germany launch $20m renewabe energy project for Chile
The renewable energy project will support the development of small scale distributed renewable energy in Chile, including hotels and malls.
British ambassador, Jon Benjamin, with Chilean ministers of Environment and Energy, and other Chilean authorities.
On 15 November in Warsaw, during the 19th Conference of the Parties of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, the UK announced it has pre-approved the finance for a US$20m Chilean renewable energy project. This project will be financed from the joint UK-Germany NAMA (Nationally Appropriate Mitigation Action) Facility. 47 projects worldwide applied for this funding, of which only four have been pre-approved, reflecting the quality of the Chilean application.
The British Ambassador, Jon Benjamin, met with the Ministers of Energy and Environment to personally congratulate them on this achievement. Also present were the German Ambassador, Hans-Henning Blomeyer-Bartenstein; Ms. Maria Paz de la Cruz, Director of the Renewable Energy Centre, and Ambassador Pedro Oyarce, Assistant Director General for Multilateral and Global Issues in the Foreign Ministry. On the occasion, Ambassador Jon Benjamin said:
I am thrilled that a Chilean project made the cut. The UK and Chile have, for many years, worked together on climate change, both in international negotiations and in concrete projects on the ground in Chile to further the transition to a lower carbon economy. This project is another re-affirmation of our commitment to that partnership.
I am pleased that the official announcement of this project is being made today during the 19th Conference of the Parties in Warsaw. Confidence building measures such as this are an important part of building trust, essential to arrive at a legally binding, universally applicable climate change agreement by 2015. I’m glad that British and Chilean negotiating teams are working closely together on this.
The Renewable Energy project will support the development of small scale distributed renewable energy, for example in hotels, agro-industry and malls. In a country with such a high renewable energy potential, this is off utmost priority.
This project is in addition to the $28m of climate finance the UK has provided to Chile since 2010, including through multilateral institutions – such as support for the concentrated solar power plant in Atacama through the Clean Technology Fund – and bilateral projects.
Further information
For more information about this project, contact Karl Zammit-Maempel, Head of Economic Affairs and Climate Change at the British Embassy. You may also get more details about other projects by visiting our Climate Change pages.
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