A new platform, called Finance for Resilience ("FiRe") is being launched to accelerate the flow of investment into climate, clean energy, green growth and sustainability-related opportunities

Copenhagen, 21 October 2013 – The FiRe initiative, being launched today by Bloomberg New Energy Finance at the third Global Green Growth Forum in Copenhagen, is designed to identify the most promising ways of driving step-change increases in investment in clean energy solutions, and to help accelerate their implementation at scale.

Bloomberg New Energy Finance figures show that investment in clean energy grew from just over $50 billion in 2004 to over $300 billion in 2011; since then, however, it has been declining, with investment in the first three quarters of 2013 down by over 30% from their peak. Around the world over 140 groups are working on a range of ideas to turn around the decline and achieve a step-change increase in investment, in particular in North-South flows of finance which would count towards the Copenhagen Commitment, by which developed countries promised in 2009 to invest $100bn per annum in climate solutions in the developing world by 2020.

Finance for Resilience (FiRe) is a structured process designed to identify the best proposals and to make sure they are scaled up as quickly as possible. "FiRe Priorities" will be selected based on their potential scale and ease of implementation. The initiative will cover a range of work-streams selected from the following: developing world distributed energy; developing world projects; energy policy; financial regulation and disclosure; leveraging public finance; new investors and financial products; cities & municipalities.

Michael Liebreich, Chief Executive of Bloomberg New Energy Finance said, "Over the past few years, finance has moved to the centre of the debate on a range of climate, energy and sustainability-related questions, and there has been a flowering of ideas and suggestions. Now it is time for the international community to focus on a smaller number of scalable, achievable interventions which can help drive sharply increased investment flows into clean infrastructure. My hope is that FiRe will play a significant role in accelerating flows of investment."

FiRe will iterate on an annual cycle by which proposals will be researched, prioritised, implemented and tracked. The first FiRe Annual Meeting, where FiRe proposals will be presented and assessed, will take place in NYC on the 9th of April 2014 as part of the seventh Bloomberg New Energy Finance Summit.

For more information, or to support or participate in FiRe, please contact Philip Verey at pverey2@bloomberg.net.