OREANDA-NEWS. One of the keys to decarbonizing the energy sector, a critical element in the drive to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, lies in accelerating technological innovation and deploying clean energy technologies.

That’s the objective behind Mission Innovation, which groups together 21 partner economies, and seeks to mobilise support for the deployment of clean energy technologies in part through committing to double clean energy research and development by 2020.

Today the countries that make up Mission Innovation account for over 80% of global public investment in clean energy research and development, totalling approximately $15 billion USD per year.

Formally launched with a joint statement in the lead up to the COP21 climate conference held in Paris in 2015, Mission Innovation seeks to “reinvigorate and accelerate public and private global clean energy innovation with the objective to make clean energy widely affordable.”

This acceleration is necessary if the world is to meet collective climate goals. Despite ambitious commitments made under the Paris Agreement, global emissions are likely to keep rising in 2030. The IEA has shown that a peak in emissions can be achieved in the short-term. But that will not be possible without immediate policy action and investment. Furthermore, the long-term goal of zero net greenhouse gas emissions — one of the main goals of the 2°C scenario — in the second half of this century will require considerable technological innovation and funding.