To promote regional energy cooperation through different strategies and actions for achieving a cleaner, safer, efficient, modern and fair energy deployment.
Shared leadership in the implementation of energy initiatives and the exchange of experiences within the countries of the Americas in support of sustainable development goals.
At the April 2009 Summit of the Americas in Port of Spain, Trinidad and Tobago, leaders of the Western Hemisphere reaffirmed their commitment to work together towards a clean energy future.
Since its inception, ECPA has focused on energy efficiency, renewable energy, cleaner and more efficient use of fossil fuels, energy poverty, and infrastructure. In the first year, nearly a dozen initiatives and projects began under ECPA in these areas, led by the United States, Brazil, Canada, Chile, Costa Rica, Mexico, Peru, and Trinidad and Tobago. Inter-American and regional institutions such as the Organization of American States (OAS) and the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB), multilateral development banks such as the World Bank, private sector, civil society, and academia are supporting ECPA.
In April 2010, as part of ECPA, the United States invited Western Hemisphere energy ministers to the Energy and Climate Ministerial of the Americas to highlight progress, announce new partnerships and facilitate the development of new initiatives among governments, institutions, private industry, and civil society. At this ministerial, the United States Government proposed ECPA’s focus be expanded to also include initiatives regarding sustainable forests and land use, as well as climate change.
At the Steering Committee Meeting held in Panama City in May 2016, an update to the Pillars was proposed. The new structure is as follows:
Energy efficiency: Promote the development of Energy Efficiency Policies in the Region through a cooperation and exchange framework that includes implementing best practices in specific sectors, promoting awareness and education on environmental/clean energy issues, and consolidating programmatic and regulatory schemes through human resource training, program and project management, and operation.
Renewable energy: Steps to accelerate clean and renewable energy deployment via project support where feasible, policy dialogues, and scientific collaboration.
Cleaner and more efficient use of fossil fuels: Promote best practices for managing hydrocarbons and the use of energy technologies, to reduce both pollution and the carbon footprint of conventional energy sources.
Energy infrastructure: Foster modernized, integrated, and more resilient energy infrastructure through disaster risk management, among other strategies.
Energy poverty: Target energy poverty with strategies to promote sustainable development and improve access to modern clean energy services and appropriate technologies that can safeguard public health, and reduce environmental impact.
Regional energy integration: Promote regional energy coordination, cooperation, or harmonization (where feasible) and interconnection between and among countries in the Americas, in order to foster complementarity for the sustainable development of the Region.
Energy research and innovation: Encourage technological development of innovative systems that make renewable energy widely affordable and available, while fostering applied research based on country-specific needs.
Under ECPA, the lead and/or participating governments and public and private sector partners contribute resources to implement the initiatives. ECPA’s initial focus and structure was developed at the June 2009 Americas Energy and Climate Symposium in Lima, Peru, co-hosted by the Peruvian and U.S. governments and the Institute of the Americas.
Participants acknowledged the enormous potential to accelerate clean energy uptake in the Americas, identified opportunities for partnership under ECPA, and stressed that initiatives should produce tangible results, promote best policy and regulatory practices, and build capacity in the design, evaluation, and implementation of clean and environmentally-sustainable energy policies and projects.
