Shell, Schneider Electric and the Rocky Mountain Institute introduced the Energy Transitions Commission at the Fortune Brainstorm E Conference in Austin, Texas. The commission was formed to develop actionable insights to help energy decision-makers sustain economic growth while also mitigating climate change.
Commissioners come from the following energy companies, renewable energy interests and heavy energy users:
Public and academic institutions and foundations are also represented on the Commission.
The ETC will help to galvanize decision makers to ensure that increasing demand for energy is met in a way that limits climate change to the 2 degrees Celsius threshold agreed by the international community.
“Success for the ETC has at least three dimensions,” says Ajay Mathur, incoming director-general of The Energy and Resources Institute (TERI) based in New Delhi. “The first dimension is a broad agreement — not a consensus — among the various members of the initiative about the key pathways that are important. The second one is our ability to provide the analytical support to convince various stakeholders — technology providers, bankers, policymakers — that these pathways are worth investigating. The third is the creation of the corpus of knowledge around which future discussions happen.”
The Commission’s work on energy transitions will encompass the following activities:
Future work will explore how to achieve higher solar adoption rates and how to increase data reliability and transparency when it comes to measuring and reporting air quality.
Earlier this month, Shell announced it was no longer a member of the Prince of Wales’s Corporate Leaders Group — a leading climate change advocacy group it helped start 10 years ago.
