21. October 2019

Scientists, decision-makers and experts from more than 15 countries exchanged views on the social and economic opportunities of an ambitious deployment of renewable energies in electricity production and supply during the conference Climate Opportunity 2019: Co-Benefits for Just Energy Futures taking place at October 15 and 16, 2019 in Berlin.

More than 15 studies about Co-Benefits of renewable energies in related sectors like water, air quality, health, energy access and security, jobs, prosperity and local value creation have been presented during the conference, as well as tools for the calculation of these Co-Benefits, and approaches to better include them into policy making.

The Knowledge Commons Exhibition, which displays newest result, tools and approaches for policy processes will be available online soon. The Climate Opportunity 2019 conference was carried out under the project COBENEFIT.

At the second conference day, UfU organized the deep dive workshop Communication and Participation. Here, international experts discussed how participation can contribute to a better consideration of socio-economic Co-Benefits in policy planning. Experts also exchanged views on how the multiple opportunites of the global energy transition can be communicated better.

Nguy Thi Khanh, Director of the Vietnamese Think Tank GreenID, illustrated this by using the communication of energy policy in Vietnam as an example.  Especially interesting was also the contribution of Tasneen Essop, Commissioner of the National Planning Commission of South Africa. She explained how a just drop-out of coal in South Africa is planned by a participatory process.