U.S. Secretary of Energy Jennifer M. Granholm and the Federative Republic of Brazil’s Minister of Mines and Energy, Alexandre Silveira, announced their commitment on joint clean energy cooperation when they met on the margins of the 14th Clean Energy Ministerial and 8th Mission Innovation meetings in Goa, India. The leaders renewed their commitment to work together as global energy powerhouses with shared values and priorities through the U.S.-Brazil Energy Forum (USBEF)—the premier bilateral dialogue for technical, policy, trade, and investment cooperation focused on accelerating clean energy transitions.
Secretary Granholm and Minister Silveira emphasized that government-enabled, private sector-led approaches are essential to drive clean energy innovation, deployment, and investment. The two leaders agreed to work hand-in-hand with the private sector to implement new work in sustainable aviation fuels, clean hydrogen, and carbon and methane management through the Clean Energy Industry Dialogue (CEID). The ministers agreed to fully launch CEID public-private action committees to make progress across these three critical technologies by COP28. The CEID will also facilitate cooperation on grid modernization and storage as well as offshore wind power in its second phase.
Secretary Granholm and Minister Silveira emphasized the important leadership role that both nations play in accelerating clean energy transitions in the Western Hemisphere. They emphasized and agreed to integrate shared priorities of investing in local communities, protecting the environment, building a clean energy workforce, promoting energy access, and advancing diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility.
The ministers adopted the USBEF Action Plan 2023-2024, a roadmap that identifies four thematic areas for collaboration:
- Mobilizing Private Sector and Community Engagement: Convene the CEID this year, share approaches to incentivizing private sector investment, deepen community engagement and benefits especially for publicly funded energy projects;
- Carbon and Methane Management: Exchange expertise in carbon capture, storage, and utilization, and methane mitigation;
- Civil Nuclear Power: Continue and expand cooperation on civil nuclear power and launch new efforts on civil nuclear regulation and new nuclear power generation; and
- Renewables and Grid Modernization: Increase the cooperation on renewable energy and energy efficiency, particularly in strategic sectors such as clean hydrogen, offshore wind, sustainable fuels, and grid modernization and storage.
The leaders agreed their senior officials and interagency policy experts would meet on quarterly basis to accelerate implementation, and announced Brazil would host the next USBEF ministerial in 2024 on the margins of the 15th Clean Energy Ministerial and 9th Mission Innovation meetings in Foz do Iguaçu, Brazil.
Secretary Granholm welcomed Minister Silveira’s participation in the Carbon Management Challenge – a global effort to scale up the deployment of carbon, capture, utilization, and storage and carbon dioxide-removal technologies as a necessary complement to aggressive mitigation action.
