R20 General Assembly meeting held in Paris

Monday December 7, 2015. R20 held its Governing Board and General Assembly meetings at its new R20 Paris office in Champs Elysees. The meetings, presided by R20 President Michele Sabban, gathered over 30 R20 members and partners coming from regions around the world.

The Governing Board and General Assembly members unanimously re-elected Michele Sabban as President of R20.

R20 Executive Director Christophe Nuttall used these examples to demonstrate R20’s successful business model over the past 3 years of bringing together decision makers, technical expertise, financial partners and investors, thereby enabling the deployment of projects on the ground. In particular, Dr. Nuttall highlighted R20’s ability to leverage millions of dollars for investments in projects, first by using seed funding to build Pre-Investment Facilities, which in turn provide funding for project development, and then by attracting the appropriate investments to implement the projects. Over the next 5 years, R20 will harness its resources to scale up the projects through its Green Investment Accelerator Fund, that will deploy billions of US dollars in investments.

The event was a great opportunity to hear the latest news from the R20 affiliate offices in Algeria and Brazil, which were represented by the Governor of Mato Grosso, Jose Pedro Goncalves Taques, and the Wali of Oran, Abdelghani Zaalane; respectively Vice Presidents for Latin America and for North Africa on the R20 Board. Both spoke of R20’s accomplishments in their regions and expressed their wish to expand the on-going projects on energy efficiency and waste management.

Positive results were also reported by Aboubacar Savadogo, former President of the Northern Regions of Burkina Faso, R20 China Director Yufu Cheng, and Eric Scotto, CEO of Akuo Energy, who introduced the 50Mw solar power plant in Kita Mali.

Terry Tamminen, Strategic Advisor to R20’s Founding Chair, Arnold Schwarzenegger, presented R20’s work on financing, especially through the publication of two major reports: Scaling Up: Local to Global Climate Action and Climate Finance: A Status Report & Action Plan.