Remarks as Prepared for Delivery by Secretary Granholm Opening DOE’s “Net Zero World: Accelerating Global Energy System Decarbonization” COP27 Event

Thank you all for joining us.  

Just over a year ago, I had the pleasure of formally launching our Net Zero World Initiative at COP 26 in Glasgow. 

This is the Department of Energy’s signature effort to marshal a broad range of U.S. government resources—across nine federal agencies and 10 National Labs—with support from academia, philanthropy, and the private sector, all to work in collaboration with countries that want to meet their development needs with clean energy, and move from ambition to action. 

We started this initiative with six partner nations. And we’ve taken great strides together over the course of this year: 

From planning for island decarbonization with Indonesia, to sharing knowledge with Chile on advancing a Just Transition, supporting Egypt’s Nexus Water Food and Energy Initiative with analytic and technical assistance from our National Labs, and kicking off joint analyses of the potential for carbon management and distributed clean energy deployment with Nigeria. 

This is by no means an exhaustive list. And I’m grateful to have so many of my counterparts from our partner nations here to tell you more about the progress we’ve made across our collective efforts.   

But before we get into the dialogue we have planned today, I want to make some news.  

Together with our partner countries—most of whom are represented here—we are releasing the first in a series of reports summarizing modeling activities across energy systems to date.  

These reports will help guide government decisionmakers as they shape energy policy and investment strategies at the national and regional levels—and help us manage this transition to net-zero. 

We have also created a NZW Women’s Leadership Program—which will offer mid-career women in all of our NZW partner countries an opportunity to train at our National Labs and connect with mentors and coaches. The application process for this program is now open, and so I hope all of you can help us get the word out.  

Finally, I’m delighted to announce that we are welcoming new partner nations into the Net Zero World Initiative: Singapore and Thailand. 

Already, we are studying the feasibility of regional grid integration in a joint effort with Singapore.

And we are eager to explore more avenues for collaboration—with all of our partner countries. 

We in the Department of Energy believe that the potential for Net Zero World is only just taking shape. 

That is in no small part because, thanks to President Biden’s clean energy agenda, the United States has made a half-trillion dollar down payment on the clean energy future.  

The investments we will make, alongside the private sector, will grow clean energy industries and improve clean energy technologies—bringing down costs and the barriers to deployment all over the world.  

At the Department of Energy, we believe that innovation anywhere leads to progress everywhere. Net Zero World will help us make sure of it. 

With that, I’d like to invite our partners to speak. 

We’ll start with our newest additions—Minister Fu from Singapore, and then by video, Mr. Pisut Painmanakul, Secretary to the Minister of Energy from Thailand.  

From there, I’ve asked representatives from some of our inaugural partners to share their perspectives on the outcomes we have already delivered, together, and where our collaborations will go from here.  

We have proposed some questions, and we hope that as we move to remarks from our inaugural partners, we can have a candid conversation covering the following:  

What are the best examples of the energy transition happening in your country, what are your priority sectors, and what are the most challenging technology questions you are focused on answering to achieve the energy transition?

How do you envision Net Zero World accelerating these goals?  

First, let’s hear from Minister Fu.