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Clinton raises 5 bln dollars to initiate global building retrofit program
17/5/2007 16:26

Former US President Bill Clinton yesterday declared that his foundation had raised US$5 billion to initiate a global energy efficiency building retrofit program aimed at reducing greenhouse gas emissions.
The announcement was made on the sidelines of the second C40 Large Cities Climate Summit being held in New York.
Five major global financial institutions -- ABN AMRO, Citi Group, Deutsche Bank, JPMorgan Chase, and UBS -- have agreed to finance the first phase of retrofit projects. Each committed to arrange US$1 billion for this effort.
Sixteen world cities will be the first C40 partner cities to participate in the program: Bangkok, Berlin, Bombay, Chicago, Houston, Johannesburg, Karachi, London, Melbourne, Mexico City, New York, Rome, Sao Paulo, Seoul, Tokyo, and Toronto.
These participating cities have committed to work with the Foundation and its expert partners to develop programs to audit their buildings and to implement retrofits that improve their energy efficiency.
They also will implement a range of inducements to encourage private building owners to do audits and retrofits of their buildings.
Four energy services companies in the world -- Honeywell, Johnson Controls, Inc., Siemens and Trane -- have agreed to scale up their capacity to do large numbers of building retrofits across C40 partner cities that are participating in the program.
They will provide "performance guarantees" to financially guarantee the energy savings that will result from the retrofit projects.
In the coming months, the Clinton Foundation will announce deals with companies that supply building materials and systems to lower the cost of their most energy efficient models.
According to Clinton Foundation's statistics, urban areas are responsible for approximately 75 percent of all energy use and greenhouse gas emissions in the world. Buildings account for nearly 40 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions, and in cities such as New York and London this figure is close to 70 percent.
Through this program, cities and private building owners are able to borrow the necessary funds to make building retrofit investments and to pay back the loans using the initial energy savings that will be achieved.
Clinton expected more world cities to join the program, saying "I hope the 16 mayors will inspire their counterparts."
New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg said cities are taste- makers, so when cities take the move, the rural areas will follow suit.



Xinhua