The Organization for American States (OAS) has announced the 14 recipients from ten Central American and Caribbean countries of US$50,000 grants from the Energy and Climate Partnership of the Americas (ECPA) to non-governmental organizations, community associations and academic institutions for community-based projects in clean energy, disaster resilience, sustainable transport and waste management.
The Inter-American Institute for Cooperation on Agriculture (IICA) and the German international cooperation agency (GIZ) are helping Costa Rica’s coffee, waste management and public transport sectors prepare Nationally Appropriate Mitigation Actions (NAMAs), with the coffee NAMA first to be completed by end of 2012 and implemented in 2013.
Switzerland and Peru are collaborating under the World Meteorological Organization’s Global Framework for Climate Services (GFCS) on a project to improve climate services for the Peruvian Andes. The project will also incorporate generated data into environmental decision-making in the agriculture, energy, tourism, transport, health and education sectors.
The workshop examined approaches to ensure that smallholders are not marginalized by increasing biofuel production for aviation. IFAD highlighted a $12 million initiative on research and development of alternative crops for smallholder biofuel production. They also underscored recent research grants that will help to produce biofuels sustainably.
The reports highlight that improving energy efficiency in operations, products and services, and the increased use of renewable energy are key priority action areas for business to support the UN Secretary-General’s Sustainable Energy for All (SE4ALL) initiative, while they also emphasize that industry-wide standards should be developed as well as new financing mechanisms to overcome risks associated with the suggested action areas.