What we do

Working closely with partners in government departments and agencies, COBENEFITS connects the social and economic opportunities of renewable energies to climate change mitigation strategies. The project aims at building strong alliances and lowering political barriers.

COBENEFITS aims at strength­en­ing the abil­i­ty of gov­ern­ment depart­ments and agen­cies in charge of cli­mate and ener­gy issues in the tar­get coun­tries to advise min­is­te­r­i­al clients on the co-ben­e­fits of renew­able pow­er gen­er­a­tion in order to spur the ambi­tious and effec­tive imple­men­ta­tion of Nation­al­ly Deter­mined Con­tri­bu­tions (NDCs) adopt­ed under the Paris Agreement.

Under­stand­ing the co-ben­e­fits of cli­mate change mit­i­ga­tion – in par­tic­u­lar those with imme­di­ate or near-term effects – enables pol­i­cy­mak­ers to for­mu­late, pro­mote, and imple­ment ambi­tious cli­mate poli­cies. By fos­ter­ing cross-sec­toral coop­er­a­tion for the imple­men­ta­tion of NDCs, COBENEFITS bol­sters efforts to close ambi­tion gaps. COBENEFITS also works to inte­grate and main­stream co-ben­e­fit assess­ments in nation­al and inter­na­tion­al UNFCCC Mea­sure­ment, Report­ing and Ver­i­fi­ca­tion (MRV) mech­a­nisms. In addi­tion, we expect the project to con­tribute to efforts to achieve the Unit­ed Nations sus­tain­able devel­op­ment goals (SDGs) and acti­vate financ­ing mech­a­nisms such as the Green Cli­mate Fund (GCF).

How we work

COBENEFITS facil­i­tates inter­na­tion­al mutu­al learn­ing and capac­i­ty build­ing among pol­i­cy­mak­ers, knowl­edge part­ners and mul­ti­pli­ers through a range of mea­sures. In a first step, coun­try-spe­cif­ic assess­ments of the avail­able oppor­tu­ni­ties to har­vest the social and eco­nom­ic co-ben­e­fits of renew­able pow­er gen­er­a­tion are pre­pared in order to shape appro­pri­ate pol­i­cy action. Sec­ond­ly, train­ing mate­ri­als, online cours­es and face-to-face train­ing are used to dis­sem­i­nate these new insights with­in the tar­get group and beyond. Third­ly, polit­i­cal dia­logue ses­sions will enable polit­i­cal lead­ers to focus their atten­tion on path­ways to over­com­ing bar­ri­ers to progress. And final­ly, COBENEFITS will iden­ti­fy strate­gies to con­nect the co-ben­e­fits of cli­mate change mit­i­ga­tion with cli­mate action plans, the Paris Ambi­tion Mech­a­nism and Mea­sure­ment, Report­ing and Ver­i­fi­ca­tion (MRV) schemes to sup­port the imple­men­ta­tion of Nation­al­ly Deter­mined Con­tri­bu­tions (NDCs).

In order to facil­i­tate local imple­men­ta­tion and fos­ter polit­i­cal own­er­ship among key polit­i­cal stake­hold­ers, two prin­ci­pal bod­ies have been estab­lished: COBENEFITS Focal Points and the COBENEFITS Councils.

The nation­al COBENEFITS Focal Points are key imple­men­ta­tion agen­cies of the COBENEFITS project in India, South Africa, Turkey, and Viet­nam. They include inde­pen­dent research organ­i­sa­tions and think tanks in the part­ner coun­tries with broad exper­tise in cli­mate and ener­gy pol­i­cy. The COBENEFITS Focal Points pro­vide organ­i­sa­tion­al sup­port at local lev­el, fos­ter polit­i­cal own­er­ship, and gen­er­ate coun­try-spe­cif­ic knowl­edge, in par­tic­u­lar through net­work­ing, trust-build­ing mea­sures, coun­try-spe­cif­ic com­mu­ni­ca­tion, and pol­i­cy and media monitoring.

In each of the part­ner coun­tries, the COBENEFITS Coun­cil is respon­si­ble for pro­vid­ing ori­en­ta­tion and set­ting pri­or­i­ties for co-ben­e­fits-relat­ed activ­i­ties in view of the polit­i­cal rel­e­vance and impact of the project’s out­put. It has a clear oppor­tu­ni­ty ori­en­ta­tion and cre­ates com­mon ground for col­lab­o­ra­tion across ministries/government agen­cies and their par­tic­u­lar agen­das. Its mem­bers rep­re­sent gov­ern­men­tal port­fo­lios relat­ed to cli­mate and ener­gy poli­cies in the tar­get coun­tries, as well as ministries/governmental agen­cies that are like­ly to ben­e­fit from social and eco­nom­ic co-ben­e­fits and, as such, poten­tial supporters/enablers of an ambi­tious cli­mate and renew­able ener­gy agen­da. A COBENEFITS Coun­cil typ­i­cal­ly counts rep­re­sen­ta­tives from the min­istries of eco­nom­ic affairs, health, indus­try and finance among its mem­bers as well as pol­i­cy­mak­ers from the fields of ener­gy and cli­mate protection.

Learn more about the COBENEFITS approach of Strate­gic Co-Ben­e­fit Assess­ments [PDF].