Disrupting the climate status quo
The Coalition for Climate Entrepreneurship (CCE) is a public-private partnership that aims to address the climate crisis and contribute to economic empowerment in developing countries by nurturing entrepreneurship focused on climate solutions.
The Challenge
Climate change is not just about threats and challenges; it is also about opportunities to transform the way we produce and use energy. Investment in clean energy over the last decade grew from less than $50 billion to over $250 billion per year. The International Energy Agency projects that cumulative investment in the power sector may reach nearly $17 trillion from 2012–2035, including $6.4 trillion in renewable energy technologies.
To confront our shared climate change challenge head-on, we need to catalyze clean energy, climate adaptation, and resilient technologies, and disrupt the status quo. To accomplish this, we must harness both the best entrepreneurs and technologies to meet the growing demand for energy with the common goal of providing access to sustainable clean energy and economic development.
The Opportunity
In recognition of the important role entrepreneurship plays in addressing climate change, the U.S. Department of state launched the Coalition for Climate Entrepreneurship (CCE) at COP26 in Glasgow as a public- private partnership between the U.S. Department of State and private sector partners. CCE aims to address the climate crisis and contribute to economic empowerment in developing countries by nurturing entrepreneurship focused on climate solutions. Our private sector partners include Salesforce, LinkedIn, General Electric (GE), ARM, MassChallenge, and more.
By offering support through capital, capacity building, technical assistance, access to mentorship, and network building in the early and growth stages, the U.S. Department of State and its partners can help climate change entrepreneurs engage relevant stakeholders, refine their designs, demonstrate success in the market, and then deploy effective technologies and solutions for greater global impact.
The Partnership
CCE, through close collaboration between its partners and their networks, promotes the following four pillars to support climate change-inspired startups and entrepreneurs: Capital, Expertise, Engagement, Deployment.
- Capital – Provide funding through initiatives and programs to increase scale-up / start-ups participating in sustainable economic development, and support entrepreneurs in investing and building enterprises while stimulating employment and trade in developing and emerging markets.
- Expertise – Engage partners drawn from diverse sectors and backgrounds that share a spirit of inquiry and a desire to accelerate solutions to the climate crisis by providing skills and knowledge with start-ups and scale-ups.
- Engagement – Facilitate market-based delegations of climate startups, entrepreneurs, and investors to countries and regions of interest. Meet with local political, business, and thought leaders to discuss partnership opportunities around investment. These opportunities for dialogue and engagement seek to provide insight and networks to access global markets, highlight potential areas for investment, and inspire collaboration to bring innovations to the climate change market.
- Deployment – The partners will assist in bringing resources, ideas, technological breakthroughs, and solutions into effective action and market deployment.
CCE Hubs
CCE partners have created spaces for young entrepreneurs to pioneer sustainable solutions, meet with like-minded peers, and refine their ideas through the CCE Hub program. The first of these labs was opened in Accra, Ghana in February 2023 in partnership with Arm, who will provide the hardware and software for the creative space, and Academic City University, who will host the physical venue and leverage the entrepreneurial minds of its students. Academic City University College’s CCE lab will be a hub for climate innovation throughout West Africa where students, developers and startups can work with industry experts to create sustainable technology and climate businesses.
GP The Department of State continues to meet with potential partners and field discussions for future labs across the world. As more CCE Hubs are brought online, laboratories will be able to communicate with each other, share ideas, and meaningfully contribute in combatting the global climate crisis.