Power Struggle
Improving the energy dialogue in Canada (and beyond) through honest, non-partisan, and fact- based conversations.
The energy conversation is personal: it’s in our homes, in our hands, and now, it’s in our ears. Power Struggle invites you to listen in on honest, non-partisan, and fact-based conversations between host Stewart Muir and the leaders and thinkers designing modern energy.
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Power Struggle
Breaking the Energy Barrier and Rewiring the Future // Woochong Um & Isabel Beltrán of GEAPP
What if the biggest opportunity to solve climate change isn't where you think it is? While wealthy nations debate their climate goals, organizations like GEAPP are helping developing countries take bold steps to secure a cleaner, more independent energy future.
Discover how the Global Energy Alliance for People and Planet (GEAPP) is tackling some of the world's most pressing energy challenges with CEO Woochong Um & Isabel Beltrán.
The energy conversation is polarizing. But the reality is multidimensional. Get the full story with host Stewart Muir.
Reach out to us with thoughts, questions, or ideas at info@powerstruggle.ca
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We did that. This happened when I was little. I remember having electricity cuts when I was like maybe in primary school, and you forget. You know what it means to have like to not have electricity for six hours every day, and now we're living that again and realizing that it's fragile.
Stewart Muir:Welcome to Power Struggle. I'm Stuart Muir. Woochong Um is the Chief Executive Officer of the Global Energy Alliance for People and Planet, . It's a multi-sector coalition based in New York City. was established in 2021 to address one of the most pressing challenges of our era eradicating energy poverty and combating the climate crisis. Before joining GEOP in 2024, wu Chong had a distinguished career, including at the Asian Development Bank, where he served as managing director general. In that capacity, he led global partnerships and funding mechanisms aimed at transforming economies and communities. I really can't think of a better person than Wu Chong right now to help our journey of understanding here at Power Struggle, because we're searching for all the insights we can get on the future of global energy. Wu-chang Ng, welcome to Power Struggle.
Woochong Um:Thank you very much. Very, very happy to be here,
Stewart Muir:wu-chang. Let's start at the top. For those who might not know what is GEAPP?
Woochong Um:So GEAPP, as you mentioned, was established three years ago, almost exactly three years ago, by three partners who got together so that's Rockefeller, bezos and IKEA to help eradicate energy poverty and, at the same time, resolve the climate problem. We knew that there is an existential challenge that humanity faces, challenge that the humanity faces. Unless we move quickly and more boldly, our planet will not survive in the long run. So that basically means we have to do everything we can to try to reduce the greenhouse gas emission that is, you know, human-made to the extent of four gigatons of CO2 emission reduction. And they also need to provide access to clean energy to 1.5 billion people, because, no matter what you do in a developed world, the developing countries will continue to develop and they need to get on the clean path.
Woochong Um:Otherwise, if they get into the fossil fuels and go for short-term returns, they're going to be locked in to investments that will continue to be emitting greenhouse gas and also they will be locked into their obligation to import expensive fuel from somewhere else, so they will be much more dependent on the fluctuating fuel prices and so forth. And then also providing the just transition for people who are affected by the green economy. So, whether people who are in the fossil fuel, moving to the clean industry, and the people who can benefit from renewable energy, whether you're a farmer or a student, men and women who can benefit and improve their livelihood using green electrons. So this vision, a mega vision, was launched in Glasgow and the idea is to bring, galvanize all the key players around the world to focus on this agenda globally, focusing on the lower middle-income countries and the lower-income countries so that they can get in the right path.
Stewart Muir:This is incredibly ambitious, but it's not your first rodeo in solving these big global challenges. Woo-chung, what got you hooked in this space?
Woochong Um:Well, that started about 20 years ago. I mean, I was working in the Asian Development Bank. I was in charge of infrastructure development for their organization to build infrastructure that will help eradicate poverty for these people in Asia. And in 2005, we had a vision that we need to get countries to get on the clean path, as I mentioned, so that it has a positive impact on the environment but also for the economy as well, because we don't want countries to be continuing to be dependent on fossil fuel import. So we launched this thing called the Clean Energy Program, where we tried to double and quadruple our investments into clean energy space. So that worked out quite well from 2005 to 2010. We were able to quadruple.
Woochong Um:And then we started to tackle other sectors, in transport sector, for example, because electric, the efficient mobility, is a key to economic development and if you keep just building roads where you put fossil fuel burning cars again, you're going to have a huge impact in global greenhouse gas emission. At the same time, the countries will be bogged down with traffic, as you know. You know when there's traffic, it does have a huge impact on the economy. So that's sort of the beginning of the transformation of myself actually to get into more green investments and fast forward to 2024,. When I was exposed to the G-App and the vision that the G-App has, I felt that I could take everything I learned over the last in my career, last 30 plus years, and apply it at the global scale.
Stewart Muir:Well, it's going to need your skills. Even the wealthiest countries in the world take Germany, the United States, canada are struggling to reduce the emissions. They're not meeting their targets. How is it going to be possible for the developing world, for the lower and middle income nations, to do it if these wealthy countries haven't shown that much progress?
Woochong Um:Well, I think you're underestimating the power of the wealthier countries, because you do have technology and finances and the challenge that we face is that there's a lot of money out there that's ready for investment, but only a fraction of the investments out there actually eventually flow to the developing countries.
Woochong Um:And when you talk about the commitments made by any country global greenhouse gas emission reduction, decarbonization is a global issue. And if you're in Canada, you're much more efficient than developing country. So it's actually much more costly to do additional decarbonization in the developed country than you can do in developing country. So what we are trying to do is capture the knowledge, the technology and the finance that are domiciled in the developed country to be channeled to developing countries, countries where development will happen in a big way and the cost of decarbonizing is much cheaper in developing country than in the developed country. So the opportunity is there. So whether you reduce 100 gigatons of greenhouse gas in developing country versus Canada, the impact is the same. It's the global impact. So we are basically relying on developed countries to do what you need to do in your own country, but we are trying to facilitate the developed country to help the developing country so that we can all help ourselves in a global way.
Stewart Muir:I think you're saying something really important there. It sounds like the technologies that are being incubated, developed, implemented in developed countries can be brought to developing countries at the time when they are first embarking on a more energy-intensive Exactly, yeah Right, that's an important thought. Intensity Exactly, yeah Right, that's an important thought. Recently, you were at COP29 in Azerbaijan and at the climate summit in late 2024, was credited for being front and center in the historic $300 billion climate funding deal and you were in the room where it happened.
Woochong Um:We are almost 10 years since Paris in 2015. And there's a general impression that we need to ramp up our efforts so that 300 billion number may be not as big as what some people had expected, but it's a significant signal that the stakeholders have sent that we mean business and towards the COP30 next year in Belém, brazil. So the fact that there is a deal is a very, very important step. This also sends a signal that everyone needs to focus more to turn that $300 billion into trillions of dollars by mobilizing private capital, because that's where the real money is. So the G-App you know we have 50 plus partners around the world. We're working together and those partnership encompasses the public sector and the private sector, and we're trying to come up with a mechanism and approaches that will crowd in private capital. So that means that we have to tackle in several different areas.
Woochong Um:One is, as I mentioned, we are working in a developing country, so the developing country capacity and their capability needs to be enhanced by way of introducing reforms, by providing capacity building, technical assistance, so that the regulatory framework is much more efficient for private capital to flow in.
Woochong Um:But also, more importantly, we need to help these countries to have more bankable projects which are attractive to investors in private space.
Woochong Um:And when you try to attract private capital, they do need to make money somehow right.
Woochong Um:So you cannot expect private sector to put their capital where there's money losing business.
Woochong Um:So supporting these countries in project development is another space that we can get involved in, and then we participate in structuring deals where private capital is brought in, whether we use, you know, guarantee first, loss guarantee kind of thing, or equity investment or even debt investment. So by us getting involved, we crowd in the public sector and when we have these kind of players co-investing, the private sector investors feel much more comfortable coming in on top of that. So there are real risks that the private sector investors will have to deal with and that can be dealt with by providing guarantees, for example. But there's also perceived risk, which is actually even bigger, because when you're working in a frontier countries, it's the first time investing in a given country, in Africa, let's say people will feel nervous until they see somebody doing it right. So the fact that we are shoulder to shoulder investing into these kind of projects will give comfort to the private capital investors and we can hopefully turn that $300 billion into trillions of dollars in the years to come.
Stewart Muir:Was there a sense of disappointment that, although $300 billion is a big number, the starting number that was sought by those who wanted this program to succeed was $1.3 trillion?
Woochong Um:You have to start somewhere and, like I said, I think it sent the signal that it will happen, because I think there are also pessimists who thought that we'll never have a deal anyway. Right, so it would be nice to get into trillions, but getting it's a 300 billion is a large, a lot of money that we can have it go much farther but, like I said, getting into focusing on crowding and more private capital.
Stewart Muir:I'm trying to get a mental picture of what you'll be going forth to actually do with this $300 billion. There's one program, bess, or Battery Energy Storage Systems. That is a hot topic in your space, wuchong. I know that you're unlocking some projects in Malawi enough to power 1.5 million electric cars in regions of Africa at one time through one of the investments. Can you tell us a little more about what that looks like? What kind of equipment? How is it implemented? How is that power stored and then utilized?
Woochong Um:So it's battery energy storage systems best is a real game changer. Because when I first got involved with the renewable energy space 20 years ago, the battery storage wasn't such a big thing and the biggest challenge that the renewable energy space faced was that it cannot replace the base load. So when somebody has no electricity, they cannot just rely on renewable energy like solar and wind, unless you're talking about hydro. In Canada, there's're talking about hydro. You know, in Canada there's a lot of hydro, because when there's no sun, there's no electricity, when there's no wind, there's no electricity. So by introducing the best technology, that changes the dynamics and over the years over the last 20 years the cost of actual solar panels have come down significantly, but then the issue still had reliability of the electricity availability. So by integrating battery storage, it looks like a fossil fuel power plant because it's consistent and this can actually replace the energy security agenda of any given country.
Woochong Um:So we get involved through the BESS consortium that we launched last year about a year in September 2023, where several countries signed on to that to major activities in integrating BESS into renewable energy solutions in the distributed renewable energy space.
Woochong Um:And that also comes with technology bid, but also getting the internal regulatory approvals set up as well right in the given country. So this is where we actually provide quite a bit of handholding to the country so that we can help design, use the best practice in other countries to implement and promulgate some of the internal regulatory systems so that the technologies can flow into these countries well. So I'm quite optimistic that this will have a huge impact in scaling up investments, because when investments on renewable energy can solve the energy security for a given country, then people in the countries will take it very seriously and at the end, like I said, by doing installing renewable energy best energy storage will help countries become independent from fossil fuel import, which means if there's a conflict somewhere in the world, you know oil price goes up, fuel price goes up. They don't have to worry too much about the cost of their energy because sunlight will always be there.
Stewart Muir:There's a lot of places in the world where they talk about wanting to go 100% renewable and often, when you look closer, it's quite challenging and they're still using fossil fuels for aviation, for manufacturing and some things it's a little harder to get out of. Do you think there's anyone who's credibly saying that there is truly 100%? All the energy in our lives, for the way that you know some country, somewhere might be living, could become 100% renewable, not just the portion from electricity, you know, I think that if you just think about it, it seems quite daunting, but when you look at specific examples, it is possible to get there.
Woochong Um:Maybe it will take time, but I know in my previous organization they're making investments in the aviation industry for biofuel. Now I personally haven't experienced flying in another plane that's flown by fuel yet. But human being, we're amazing in terms of innovation technology. So give us enough time, we'll come up with an answer, and I'm an iPhone user. This really changed the world in 2007. And you look at before 2007 versus now. The world we live in is something that we never imagined. It's a simple thing like Uber. Uber Eats getting things at the tip of your finger was something that we never imagined possible. So you got to create a situation where, in the energy sector, we have that 2007 moment with respect to mobile phone.
Stewart Muir:Yeah, well, you think in 2007, all of these things we could not have predicted. No one was predicting. Here they are now. So the same number of years in future, 17 years down the road. Who knows what's going to be here?
Woochong Um:Exactly. So. That's the part that excites me the most coming out into this world of J-Ab, where you know we are not just about J-Ab but we are an alliance, as the name says. So we're trying to work and galvanize all the knowledge, all the technology, all the money that our partners have and channel it into the places where it will make the biggest impact. And we celebrate together.
Stewart Muir:Who inspires you in this? Who you work with?
Woochong Um:Personally, the people that excite me the most are the people with knowledge, the knowledge partners, and, for example, rmi Rocky Mountain Institute. I've worked with them since about 15, 20 years ago actually, and they're one of the alliance partners that we work with, and they have such a deep bench in terms of their knowledge on the battery storage. So I value the partnership of those entities with the knowledge that they have as the most exciting part, but of course, we do need financiers at the end of the day, right? So we want to work with everyone.
Stewart Muir:Mm-hmm. You know, at Power Struggle, since we launched, we've been talking a lot and often about the idea of an energy trilemma the three-pronged challenge of balancing energy security energy is there when you need it of making energy affordable and of achieving public acceptability in terms of sustainability. As we see the developing world navigating through the same energy trilemma as everybody else, how do you think these decisions will be brokered? Is there one of those things affordability, reliability, sustainability that's going to be more emphasized or less? How do you think that balance will be achieved?
Woochong Um:you know that trilemma um is a very important topic and we see that in every aspect of development. And I don't know if you're familiar with this thing called the JETP Just Energy Transition Platform. It started in South Africa and then now they're working in Indonesia and also moving into Vietnam. So it's about transitioning from energy the fossil energy to green energy in the just way, and so there's been a lot of lessons learned from there. So you talk about providing technological solutions so that there's a reliable electricity or energy, so that that's securities taken and also, as we scale up production, it does reduce the cost of electricity at the end of the day.
Woochong Um:But then the most important part from the lessons learned is that social acceptance part, and that's the just part. It's a just energy transition, and I know the colleagues actually G7 is driving this and the colleagues who are trying to come up with the Just P2, 2.0 is to move up the just part to the front. Because you know, for this transition of energy transition to happen, everyone has to be on board, including the politicians, the technology, the people, and unless the key decision makers can ensure that the people affected by the whole transition are taken care of and the ones left behind, it will not survive politically in the country, so it will not sustain. So in the future, when we implement the uh, these issues, we have to make sure that that we do proper analysis in terms of social impact and then bring everyone on board and then make sure that no one's left behind in that transition process.
Stewart Muir:It's a very interesting moment we're in, the geopolitical insecurity, the change, political change in countries that in some cases are saying this is a moment we're going to pivot, you might say, back to having higher reliability and affordability over sustainability, so those values of the energy trilemma become enhanced. Do you feel there's a role to set an example for the developing countries that are in your group, in your circle, that you are working with, where you want to see a certain kind of leadership?
Woochong Um:No. So this is a very important question. You know it's very, very important. As part of our alliance work, the advocacy and communication is one of the things that we do, and right now it's in 2025, it will be even more important that we wrap up that side of the things that we do. And right now, in 2025, it will be even more important that we wrap up that side of the work, because we have to make sure that people understand that green transition is good for business and good for economy. Of course, it's good for decarbonization and global warming, but at the end of the day, people will benefit from cleaner, cheaper electricity that's more stable. So we have to make sure that we communicate this so that people don't get distracted with whatever other options that may come which might be a bit more short-term cited than what we're trying to preach.
Stewart Muir:Wu Chong, after you, we're going to bridge into a discussion in today's Power Struggle with your colleague, Isabel Beltran, and before we do that, I'd like you, wuchong, to tell us a little bit about Isabel.
Woochong Um:Well, isabel is the vice president for our Latin America and Caribbean business and last month I spent some time with her in Belém, brazil, where the cop 30 will be organized, and she's an amazing person who knows how to get things done on the ground and she has a the power of influence, of getting people to do the right thing, and the kind of support that she's getting from the, from the latin american countries I've personally witnessed, and she was the key person who drove our universal access coalition work together with the Brazilian government, as we are supporting the Brazilian government in their energies for the Amazon initiative, which she will tell you all about, and I expect she will be quite noticeable in the next one year leading up to COP30.
Stewart Muir:Well, that's a great introduction and I think it's a chance, on today's episode, to bridge from the high-level leadership the strategy that you've explained to us, wu Chong, and introduce Isabel Beltran.
Isabel Beltrán:Yeah, hi, good afternoon.
Stewart Muir:Isabel is vice president at and leads the work in Latin America, as well as the Caribbean. She has more than 15 years of experience in economic development, having worked at the World Bank and the Inter-American Development Bank, focusing on sub-Saharan Africa as well as Latin America. She has a master's in economics from the Catholic University in Ecuador and a master's in public administration from Syracuse University. Isabel welcome.
Isabel Beltrán:Thank you, happy to be here, stuart.
Stewart Muir:You've accomplished so much in your career. If you weren't solving energy poverty, what do you think you'd be doing?
Isabel Beltrán:I actually think I'll be working on poverty issues, economic development, and that's where my career started, studying economics as a way to help developing countries like mine I'm Ecuadorian to really lift the population out of poverty. And then somehow, through my career, I learned, or I found, that one of the most effective paths to do that is through energy and through the provision of reliable energy. And so here I am.
Stewart Muir:Energy sounds very specific, but you've chosen it as a thing to further your work. Is that because there's something different about energy than maybe some other sectors?
Isabel Beltrán:I think all sectors are important. However, through my work at the Rockefeller Foundation and 100 Resilient Cities and thinking about resilience, energy is one of those sectors that really touches a lot of and can influence a lot of many others, and so we've done studies with a multi-poverty development index people that indicate that one of the sectors that influences more than the other ones is energy, and so if you can really focus on providing energy and make sure that the communities and the people are using that energy productively, that's one of the best indicators of development. So it's a matter of not only good for the environment, but also a really effective poverty reduction mechanism.
Stewart Muir:Now, when you take these high-level agreements, like we saw at COP29, $300 billion committed to deal with these issues what does it mean on the ground for you, particularly in Latin America and the Caribbean?
Isabel Beltrán:I think for me, latin America is a particular region in terms of a fairly clean region, fairly clean energy matrix and high electrification rates. So, like almost 97% depending on who you ask of the region is electrified already. However, the issues are different, right, so you have a region that is highly dependent on hydropower and that is really impacted by climate change. You have a lot of drought right now that is affecting actually electricity provision in Peru, in Ecuador, risking electricity provision in Brazil, so you're starting to see that the effects of climate change are really affecting energy systems.
Isabel Beltrán:And in the Caribbean, you have seen the islands suffer more frequent, stronger hurricanes year after year, and these hurricanes destroy their electricity systems, which was the case in Puerto Rico many years ago and these islands depend also on most of them depend on fossil fuel that they import from somewhere else, so they are not only disconnected from electricity because the hurricanes destroy the systems, but also the provision of diesel becomes not very reliable, and so these are the islands that are really at the front of the consequences of climate change, and so I do think that they need to work on their energy resilience, and this is where you see a lot of the efforts in the Caribbean going so like how do we incorporate batteries, large scale batteries, in our system so that we have some backup against hurricanes and storms? How do we become less dependent on diesel? How do we become sort of more self-sufficient?
Stewart Muir:You take a country like Cuba. They've gone through some terrible problems right now Blackouts. They rely on natural gas and oil for creating electricity, but they're chronically short of fuel. They have a lot of potential, natural abundance of resources and in the past they've had a very wealthy existence. What is the perception they have of going through changes in the energy system that are being suggested for them?
Isabel Beltrán:I mean Cuba is an interesting example and something that I'm not 100% familiar with, given the political complications of working in Cuba.
Isabel Beltrán:But I suppose it's the same that in the other islands of the Caribbean that these new suppose it's the same that in the other islands of the Caribbean that this new technology so including renewables in your matrix is favorable but also comes with a different way of managing the grid.
Isabel Beltrán:So our countries and our utilities are used to managing cables that are connected in a network, in a grid. That's what the regulators know how to do, that's what the utilities know how to manage. Now, if you like, decentralize the provision of energy and you have some solar energy here, some wind energy there that integration becomes a little bit more complex, and that the issue that the renewable energy is usually variable. So when you have sun you have solar energy, but it's not the same provision as when you are burning diesel. And so dealing with those technical issues is something that the islands need support from the national community and it's something that enables them to sort of shift their matrix from burning diesel or fuels that they import to actually be able to take advantage of the vast wind and solar resources that they have. So the resources are there, but the way to incorporate them is something that needs technical assistance, that it's costly and needs the support from the international community in terms of helping not only finance but also know how to manage.
Stewart Muir:In terms of adding new energy sources to lives. That seems like something that everyone's open to these days, but at the same time, you could see a Colombia saying we're going to reduce our reliance on fossil fuels, but then the next day, oh, argentina is going to increase its offshore drilling for oil and gas, and you have Venezuela, which will do, you know, something they choose to do. When you're traveling around to all these different countries that have different issues, different priorities, different politics, what themes are you seeing in how this transition is emerging in terms of what the public wants, what political leaders are doing?
Isabel Beltrán:I think there's two main things At the high level is the need to demonstrate and work with these countries in what is their sort of new green industrialization strategy. So what are the countries going to do in lieu of exporting oil or natural gas, like there has to be an alternative. This is, you know, part of their economic development. So what is the opportunity of the Latin American region in this new sort of energy world? On producing some of the materials that are needed for the energy transition. A lot of the minerals for the energy transition, like copper and lithium, are in Latin America. So how does the region take advantage of this and pushes an industrialization agenda that can provide not only lithium but maybe lithium batteries or production of panels? What is the alternative for these countries? You can come in with an agenda of saying you need to decarbonize and you need to stop selling oil, but there needs to be an alternative and there are alternatives and it's just a matter of partnering with the countries with complete packages of technical assistance and financial support to push these industrialization agendas. And, on the other hand, especially in Latin America, you see a region that, talking with many of the ministers, they struggle to fully embrace the transition when they still are leaving people behind. So many of them. You will hear them say like there's no transition without taking everyone right. We need to reach.
Isabel Beltrán:This is a region that is very close to reaching 100% electrification, but those last I don't know 16, 17, 18 million depends on what statistic you use are the people that remain unconnected, plus 60%, plus million of people that have connection, but it's not really good. It's like maybe a couple of hours a day. Those are the most complex because they are the farthest, they are the most expensive, they are the poorest, they're usually isolated, indigenous Afro-descentant communities. The technologies what is the financing mechanisms? What are the arrangements that are needed to reach the last mile and to reach 100 percent? I think a lot of the ministers have said we can't, you know, talk about transition when we still have, like you know, three, four million people that do not have any access, and so that's also something that we, you know, have been supporting and the push behind the creation of the Universal Access Coalition. It's like we can, lac could be the region that reaches 100% and, in doing so, extract a lot of the learnings that other regions are going to need further on.
Stewart Muir:I'd like to dig into the Universal Access Coalition in a moment, because I just want to stay with this topic. You raised something critical minerals. I think of a country like Chile which has got an incredible amount of mineral wealth, especially copper, without which there is no energy transition, there's no electrification. So putting countries like this in the driver's seat, or seeing them take that place through their own actions, seems like a very timely and smart thing to be doing.
Isabel Beltrán:Yes, absolutely. I think supporting these new economies and the development of these new industries is key at this moment, and it's also key for the region, right? And then, you know, providing some alternative supplies from other continents.
Stewart Muir:So can you give me some insights into the Universal Access Coalition? Where did this idea come from, what problems does it solve that are hard problems to solve by other means, and how is it going?
Isabel Beltrán:Yes.
Isabel Beltrán:So this was a little bit of a crazy ambitious idea that we had talking to many of the other partners working on access right the World Bank, the Inter-American Development Bank, ia, irena.
Isabel Beltrán:We talked to everyone to understand what was the problem and what was needed and what were the limitations, to realize that there's a lot of funding going to the sector not nearly enough but there's some funding going to universal access in Latin America, but the funding is very uncoordinated, that there's small pilots, that the lessons have not been shared, that you need scale, that it's really expensive and also the understanding that whatever approach got a country to 95% or 96% electrification, that approach is not going to be the one that takes you to 100%.
Isabel Beltrán:That last percentage needs a different way of working. And so all of these organizations have come together, sort of with a common vision of working together in coordination, sharing lessons, coordinating our interventions. We can attract more funding to the sector, we can bring a little bit of scale to the work and we can really accelerate reaching 100%, like none of these organizations can do it individually. And so we've come together, as at least you know, as an informal group of organizations working and leaders working in the sector to say what are the things that we could do together or in soft groups that will really push the agenda forward, and how can we work on those things between now and 2030 to make it a reality that we will have universal access in the region.
Stewart Muir:Is there one thing that seems to be the most effective single thing that you've stumbled upon?
Isabel Beltrán:No, there's not like a one solution for all you've stumbled upon. No, there's not like a one solution for all. But among the things that we have discussed is the need to aggregate funding, so the need to provide a platform through which donors can aggregate funding in a bigger scale, instead of small pilots here and there. So, like, could we create, like, a multi-donor trust fund dedicated to energy issues? We also talked about how all this energy interventions need to come really closely coordinated with productive use and economic development interventions.
Isabel Beltrán:I always keep this in my mind, but you know, with the electricity itself, you don't do anything with the cable. It's what you do with that energy that provides development. So, like, how can we work with the communities in terms of, like, making their agricultural practices more sustainable or more productive, or take them to a little bit of a bigger scale? That's what actually produces development. And the other thing is, we've talked about the need to really update the regulation. And what is the regulatory framework that enables different types of business models or technologies that address this last mile? Because all these regulations and all these utilities were created and designed for one grid right Central generation and so this last mile needs a little bit of a different approach and that takes some work, but countries can learn from each other.
Stewart Muir:Isabel, you come from Ecuador, so I'm thinking you must know the issues and challenges of Ecuador rather well. How is it going there in terms of energy transition? Is it a country you are looking to as an example? Do you think it's got more work to do?
Isabel Beltrán:I think it has a lot more work to do. We're not active in Ecuador right now. Ironically, the energy matrix in Ecuador was, or is still, highly renewable hydro, but the recent drought has pushed the country to basically have electricity cuts every day for several hours. This happened when I was little. I remember having electricity cuts when I was like maybe in primary school, and you forget what it means to not have electricity for six hours every day. And now we're living that again and realizing that it's fragile. So, like right now, the infrastructure solutions that are needed are costly, are going to take time. So I think the country's in a complicated situation where it was highly dependent on hydro. Hydro is variable, or way more variable than we anticipated, and now you're forced to rethink. How do you supplement that, and you know obviously diesel is an alternative, but we don't want that happening in many of the countries. This can be an emergency response, but we will want to see the countries taking this and actually building resilience without the diesel or without polluting.
Stewart Muir:There's other regions that are going through this very same problem, in fact, where I am in Western Canada, and also our neighbors in the United States, in the Pacific Northwest you think of Seattle, that's where it's always raining. Vancouver rains a lot too, so you think endless hydro. Actually, we've had droughts here too, and our 90 plus percent reliance on electricity is being challenged. We're still there, but importing more electricity, and it's something that affects a wealthy country and its neighbor. So it doesn't seem to be easy to escape from this. Do you think that in your career ahead of you, decades ahead of you, you will get to a point where there'll be easier applications that you can just wheel in to a country, say, look, we've solved this problem, here we go, just do this.
Isabel Beltrán:I think it will get easier. I don't think it will be like a very easy one size fits all, but I think, as we learn and demonstrate from examples from some countries, it will get easier for others to embrace the transition with less hesitation. I mean, the energy sector is such a political and fragile and vital sector for any economy that you really need to provide the most security to the policymakers on how this is going to work, and we're doing that. I mean we have the examples from Europe and the United States and Canada and the developing world. We just need to translate those start translating those to the developing nations.
Stewart Muir:Now, isabel, I know that is a relatively new organization and, having started organizations myself, I also know how long it can take for there to be recognition. So, with that in mind, tell me the story of .
Isabel Beltrán:I think the story of is long, but we'll try to summarize.
Isabel Beltrán:I mean, is born from the work that the Rockefeller Foundation had been doing for 10 plus years in the energy sector. The Rockefeller Foundation had worked in Africa and in Asia in the energy sector not in Latin America. In Asia in the energy sector, not in Latin America. And then, through COVID, we started thinking or the Rockefeller Foundation leadership started thinking on how this was an opportunity for a green economic recovery right and how climate and how sort of the provision of green energy and investments in green energy could help not only economic growth but at the same time also contribute to the climate change objectives. They made a big bet, a big gumball here, and then decided and got other foundations support to create what will be , a global organization that will be dedicated to support energy access and energy transition globally. And so we got the support as well from IKEA Foundation and support from the Bezos Earth Fund, and that's how was created. So in our mandate we're focused on energy access issues, green energy transition and our contributions to climate change. And so here we are.
Stewart Muir:Do you find it in yourself frustration or a source of inspiration to see the monumental scale of these challenges?
Isabel Beltrán:They are both scary and intimidating, but they're so essential that it also becomes a real, true motivation.
Isabel Beltrán:I think we see the impacts of climate change in our weather, and so if we don't act decisively, if we don't act swiftly, it's not a matter of imagining what's coming.
Isabel Beltrán:We are starting to live it, really understanding how we can support the countries, how new alliances need to be formed, how about before? You know, we used to talk about just the private sector, like the role of the private sector. I think we all have a role the private sector, the public sector, the international financial institutions and the philanthropic sector. I think that coordination and the need for all these actors to coordinate and to support countries in this path and support patiently this is not something that is going to happen in a year. This is going to take time and we all have a different role to play, right. I mean, our different types of funding have different uses and so how we can all really work together research institutions, financial institutions, governments and I think that is what is trying to do to be that platform that can bring all these actors together in support of one country's energy transition path and figuring it out along the way how we can best accelerate, extract learnings and help other countries do the same.
Stewart Muir:Isabel, your work is pivotal in reshaping the global energy landscape. What you do at . What message would you like to share with our listeners about the path forward in achieving a just and equitable energy transition?
Isabel Beltrán:I think the main message is that it's going to take a little bit of everyone's effort and commitment this is a multi-sector, a multi-actor work and challenge and that it's going to take time. The results are not going to be seen tomorrow, but nonetheless we have to believe we're on the right path and we have to continue doing it. And so setbacks. There will be setbacks along the way, but we must keep pushing forward and work in a more coordinated way. I think the world will benefit a lot for increased coordination among actors.
Stewart Muir:Do you feel there has been tangible change since you started focusing on this area yourself?
Isabel Beltrán:Yes, I do think there's a lot of other actors, and then there's a lot of new actors and then new philanthropies or new funders that see the strong linkages between so, for example, the energy sector and the agricultural sector, or the energy sector and the health sector. I think I started to see a lot more understanding of how working in energy is not just about energy, but it's about how that energy makes you know for better health, for a more productive agricultural enterprises and for just better economic development.
Stewart Muir:Well, if you can bring everyone along that way, not just those who are going through a transition in one of the countries you work in, but, I think, the broader coalition of all the countries of the world, you can be very successful.
Isabel Beltrán:Yeah, absolutely, absolutely, and I think that's one of the visions that has. Like, you know how we can work with all of our partners and how you know what is the role that each of us can play in a more effective way to push this forward.
Stewart Muir:Isabel, you have these massive goals. How do you even begin to break them down is what I'm thinking, and you know literally day after day. How do you work to make these massive changes when you enter a new country that is going to work in?
Isabel Beltrán:It reminds me a little bit of our work in Haiti and our start in our nascent work in Brazil. First, you have to start by understanding, like, what is the reality, like really taking your time to understand what are the needs, who is doing what in the country, and trying to figure out where is your support or where is support needed and who can be the best position to provide that Countries are working. Countries are working hard, they all have agendas, they all have goals, and so really taking the time to figure out and working alongside the countries to ensure that what you are doing is not only additional but also it's building upon what they're doing. So, for example, in Brazil we're working with Energies of the Amazon and Luz para Todos projects. They are flagship projects from the Ministry of Energy. They're gigantic interventions in the decarbonization of the Amazon and the electrification of the Amazon. You know you can say well, you know they have invested already hundreds of millions of dollars in that. What is your role, sandat? What is your role? So we discovered that our role is the help that we can provide is to accompany these projects, support the government in sort of the community engagement, productive uses of electricity angle. How do these projects interact with the communities. How do we make sure that these projects are more sustainable? By making sure that the communities can use this energy productively, can pay the bills of the energy that generates more income for them. How do we actually, beyond the energy, what is the accompanying things that need to go in the social and community and business side? That makes this project successful, with the hopes that the government will take these lessons and then incorporate international programs?
Isabel Beltrán:It was a very clear example of working closely with the government to understand what are they doing, how are they doing it, what do they need. Could we support that and how do we make sure that our support is done in a way that we can strike the learning so that the government can use them in a way that makes sense for their policies? And this is coming from, you know, working with a government that is putting massive amounts of resources in the access and decarbonization agenda, especially in the Amazon region, and then, in the other hand, you have countries like Haiti, where there's so many actors, everyone is trying to do something because the needs are so big, and so we have worked with all of the partners in the country to try to coordinate, sort of all these organizations and figure out what we can do and how to accelerate the work that others, the investments that others are putting in. So the World Bank, for example, and the IDV have massive investments in mini-grids in Haiti and we defined jointly that what could be helpful is if we could support the government to increase some capacity on the regulatory side and on the ministry side to actually analyze and push forward these projects. So that's what we're doing.
Isabel Beltrán:So it's all about. For us it has been in Latin America. It has been all about working in coordination with several actors defining how we can be additive. There's work already going on in many of these countries. There's many organizations working on energy issues. For us, being successful is really figuring it out. What is our value add?
Stewart Muir:I appreciate that level of insight, which I think we don't often hear into international organizations like yours, and we can deliver them to the audience here of Power Struggle. So thank you for sharing that.
Isabel Beltrán:No, thank you for listening to us.
Stewart Muir:Latin America is such a vibrant and culturally diverse region. If you could take our listeners on a tour of your favorite spots and I know you've been all around Latin America where would you go first?
Isabel Beltrán:I think I'll have to say Ecuador just because I'm Ecuadorian. You're a little biased, I'm a little biased. All around Latin America, where would you go first? I think I'll have to say Ecuador just because I'm Ecuadorian.
Stewart Muir:You're a little biased. I'm a little biased, that's okay.
Isabel Beltrán:I'm a little biased there. What a wonderful continent. I think it's very different, but one of the things that I think unifies us is that cultural sort of warmth that everywhere you go you can work really hard, you can have disagreements, but at the end of the day, you know, it's a very social, warm culture, and so I think that, at the end of the day, is something that I really appreciate. Working in the region, we can have tough days at work and discussing important issues and then at the end of the day, you know, we can go celebrate and have a dinner and have a beer. I also really appreciate the music and in that sense, you know Colombia, brazil, like dancing is something that is it's really for me, uplifting. And so I would say Ecuador, because I'm Ecuadorian. It depends on what you want. You can't go wrong. I mean, if you want to dance, you can go to Brazil, to Colombia. You know the Southern Corns, it's amazing food, it's just such a wonderful region.
Stewart Muir:Isabel, I really appreciate the time, and also your colleague Wu Chong came on and I really appreciate that too. We've had both the executive and the operational sides, I think, of the organization explained to us and maybe in future we can come back and see how you're progressing.
Isabel Beltrán:Absolutely Happy to do that and tell you more about the work and thank you for having us.
Stewart Muir:Thank you. This is Power Struggle and I'm Stuart Muir.
