GEAPP Leadership Council Unites World Leaders To Drive Green Energy Access

As a young foreign service officer in Geneva representing her native Mexico on trade and development, Patricia Espinosa saw how drought, flooding, and extreme heat disrupted the production of basic goods, from food to health care services.

This cemented her conviction that climate and development were fundamentally entwined.

The GLC presenting at the U.N. General Assembly in 2023, with The Rockefeller Foundation President Rajiv J. Shah and Norway Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Støre. (Photo Courtesy of GEAPP)

Years later, as Mexico’s Foreign Minister, she led the landmark United Nations 2010 climate conference in Cancún with a commitment to inclusiveness, transparency, and determination, and was propelled to center of the policy fight against climate change.

She has been at the forefront of that battle ever since.

She has served as the Executive Secretary of the U.N. Convention and Climate Change, and launched onepoint 5 to help governments, companies, and organizations in their transition to sustainability.

Now she is now one of 32 world leaders steering the Global Energy Alliance for People and Planet (GEAPP) as part of the high-powered GEAPP Leadership Council (GLC).

And she firmly believes in the value of convenings as a key tool to fight the climate crisis by highlighting and coordinating diverse global needs while mobilizing political and social support.

Founded in 2022 to galvanize critical climate action and drive down the cost of green energy in low- and medium-income countries, the GLC launched the Battery Energy Storage Systems (BESS) Consortium at COP28 in Dubai last year, the Distributed Renewable Energy (DRE) Scale-Up Initiative, and has now fully endorsed the World Bank and African Development Bank’s ambition of providing electricity to 300 million African’s by 2030. The GLC is co-chaired by Norway’s Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Støre and The Rockefeller Foundation’s President Dr. Rajiv J. Shah.

The GLC “underscores the necessity of collaboration across all sectors—government, private, philanthropic, and civil society — to overcome the monumental challenges climate change presents the world today,” said Woochong Um, GEAPP’s CEO.

“The GLC’s diverse expertise and coordinated efforts are pivotal in breaking down barriers and scaling solutions to ensure an equitable transition that leaves no one behind,” he said. “Only through such collective action can we hope to meet the urgent demands of the climate crisis and scale the renewable energy solutions that are key to sustainable development worldwide.”

The GLC was established in part to break down silos, and Uhl stresses the importance of including the energy sector in discussions on effectively combating climate change. She often quotes Apple Inc. co-founder Steve Jobs: “If you define the problem correctly, you almost always have the solution.”

To properly frame the climate change challenge, the right people must be in the room — those who truly grasp what it takes to transform an energy system, because an enormous level of collaboration and coordination is needed to achieve that, she said.

Uhl discovered the energy sector in her late 20s and was immediately drawn to it, captivated by how energy shapes human lives, drives prosperity, impacts the environment, and interacts with government regulations.

“I’ve been able to see firsthand the complexities and challenges of the energy system,” she said.

As busy as she is, she wanted to be part of the GLC, she said, because “GEAPP is particularly focused on impacting portions of our planet that are underserved by wealth and resources. This felt like the right place for me to contribute.”

GLC Plays Four-Part Role in Climate Change Fight

Chandrasekar Govindarajalu of the World Bank is particularly excited about how the BESS Consortium can help bring affordable renewable energy to communities with little to no electricity access.

Copenhagen to Cancún: The Difficult is Possible

Though the challenge is undeniable, Espinosa noted she has faced other difficult moments, particularly heading into the Cancún conference.

“In 2009, I attended the conference in Copenhagen and understood that, yes, fighting climate change is an environmental issue, but it also is a deeply diplomatic and political one,” she said. The accord that emerged from that summit failed to contain any emissions reduction commitments.

“Trust was broken,” Espinosa recalled. “We faced a big challenge for the multinational system as a whole.”

She felt pressure to reverse course the following year. “I worked around the clock on the Cancún conference. Some friends warned me, you are going to make yourself sick. But I said the day I go from this world, I want to know I did everything within my power to bring this process to a good end.”

Her efforts paid off.

With Espinosa wielding the gavel, the Cancún Agreement approved a “green fund” for developing countries and gave recognition to the goal of reducing greenhouse gas emissions from industrial countries by 25-40 percent from 1990 levels within 10 years. It also restored confidence, got the process back on track and set the stage of the 2015 Paris Agreement. Espinosa received high praise for her efforts in advancing the negotiations.

“I firmly believe in the power of convenings,” Espinosa said, adding that creating an environment capable of tackling climate change requires everyone at the table—not just technology providers and financiers, but also those who can rally political and social support.

As there’s no single blueprint for transitioning a country or community to green energy, it’s crucial to seek guidance from diverse perspectives, she noted.

“But we can’t wait until every detail is sorted before taking action,” Espinosa added. “Start acting now. You may not always get it right, but action is essential.”