Community engagement: the common factor that can determine whether an energy project will come to fruition or be stopped in its tracks by local opposition. As we have seen in New England, Mexico, Kenya, and many other places around the world, engaging with local communities before, during, and after the energy development process can save projects from failure.
In early February a 40-year old pipeline that is Peru’s main conduit for crude oil ruptured, spilling 3,000 barrels of oil in the Amazon rain forest and polluting two rivers. Several indigenous communities depend on the affected waterways, and their contamination poses a serious threat to those communities’ health and well-being.
In a time of intense partisan animosity in the U.S., a bipartisan group of governors from 17 states has found common ground in renewable energy. In an accord, signed on February 16, the governors pledged to accelerate their efforts to create a green economy in the U.S. by boosting renewables, building better electricity grids and cutting emissions from transportation.
On a planet of over seven billion people, there is an insatiable demand for energy. Latin America, and developing countries in general, though rich in energy resources, have the least access to energy and experience the most devastating impacts of climate change. They have consequently found themselves in the dilemma of balancing energy security with social equality while mitigating the environmental effects of energy production and global warming.
Since Mexico opened its energy resources to foreign development and investment, wind energy development in the southern state of Oaxaca has boomed, buoyed by the federal government’s goal to triple its wind capacity by 2018.
Information sharing with all stakeholders is a top priority for EO. Just as we seek to bring greater transparency to the energy industry, we are dedicated to making our own organization’s systems and operations transparent as well. The sharing of such information with stakeholders is generally known as “assurance.”
Before the COP21 climate summit officially kicked off on November 30th, renewable energy had already received a major boost. The previous day, a group of billionaires led by Bill Gates used the occasion of COP21 to announce the formation of the Breakthrough Energy Coalition, an initiative to “invest early, broadly, boldly, and wisely” in clean energy research and technical innovation to speed the transition to a no-carbon future.
In many ways, Equitable Origin began in a middle school classroom in Amherst, Massachusetts in 2001. That’s the place and time that, at the age of 14, EO President and Co-Founder David Poritz began to discover his passion for defending the people and nature of the Amazon jungle. You can read a brief version of the rest of the story…or you can experience it in your own home.
Mexico is in the midst of a historic turning point for its energy industry. Over the last three years, major reforms have opened up the Mexican energy landscape to foreign development and investment more completely than at any time in the last seven decades. As a result, an estimated $220 billion in investment opportunities are available in the newly-liberalized private energy sector.
Last week, EO co-hosted a first-of-its kind event in Lima in what we hope will prove to be the first step on a new path for responsible and inclusive energy development in the indigenous territories of Peru.