Duke University had a robust presence at COP27, as scholars and students actively engaged with global decision makers. Nicholas Institute experts who were on the ground in Egypt share their thoughts on the outcomes of the conference.

The Kyoto Protocol turns 25 this month. The framework signed on Dec. 11, 1997, committed industrialized countries and economies to limit and reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Comments from Duke University experts are available for use in your coverage.

Duke community members, including many from the Nicholas Institute, are playing leading roles in forming global partnerships and guiding decisions on climate issues at the annual climate change conference in Egypt.

World leaders will gather Nov. 6-18 in Egypt for the 27th Conference of the Parties (COP27) of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. Comments from Duke University experts are available for use in your coverage.

Jonathan Phillips was among four experts who shared a breadth of options with the World Economic Forum for new solutions to the energy transition.

Agriculture value chains are critical for climate-resilient development. So why are agtech companies unable to attract climate finance to accelerate scale-up, and what’s needed to mobilize agtech investment in low- and middle-income countries? A team from the James E. Rogers Energy Access Project at Duke write about potential solutions in a post for The Brookings Institution's Future Development blog.

The Energy Access Project at Duke has received a new gift from M.A. Rogers to boost its work developing sustainable energy policy and market solutions in emerging economies. The organization was established in 2017 through an earlier gift from Rogers and her late husband Jim, the former CEO and chairman of the board of Duke Energy. It will adopt a new name in Jim’s memory: the James E. Rogers Energy Access Project at Duke.

Jonathan Phillips and Victoria Plutshack co-authored a new report "Lessons for Modernizing Energy Access Finance, Part 2 – Balancing Competition and Subsidy: Assessing Mini-Grid Incentive Programs in Sub-Saharan Africa" reviewing 20 mini-grid incentive programs in sub-Saharan Africa, 17 of which are still being implemented. A new blog post at Brookings summarizes their findings.

As revenue-starved utilities and governments search for places to save money in the pandemic-induced recession, investments in things like maintenance, infrastructure upgrades, and improved metering technology are getting shelved. Yet these are essential tools of utilities to increase reliability, reduce losses, and shift the culture of bill non-payment that has made the power sector Africa’s Achilles heel and slowed development for decades, write Jonathan Phillips, Robyn Meeks, and Victoria Plutshack.

Electricity enables health systems to detect, prevent, and treat infectious diseases. But nearly a quarter of health clinics in sub-Saharan Africa lack power, and only 28 percent actually have reliable supplies. The Energy Access Project's Rob Fetter and Jonathan Phillips write that there is a critical opportunity to make health facility electrification a central pillar of both near-term response to COVID-19 and longer-term efforts aimed at economic recovery and enhanced resiliency in this region.