The Clinton Global Initiative was created by President Clinton in 2005 in an effort to translate ideas into action. The CGI is an action-oriented platform that seeks to catalyze new partnerships, practices, and initiatives by, and among its members that address critical global challenges. This year President Clinton was joined by over 1,000 leaders from business, government, and non-governmental organizations who traveled to New York from six continents, including nearly 60 current and former heads of state and five Nobel Peace Prize for four days of substantive discussion and problem-solving on pressing global challenges.

The annual meeting of the Clinton Global Initiative was held in New York from 23rd to 26 September 2008 and I was very fortunate to be invited as a complimentary member of the CGI community. This year, for the first time, a workshop was held for selected NGOs on the afternoon of September 22nd in order to introduce NGO participants from developing countries to the Clinton Global Initiative and I participated in this workshop as well.

The CGI can be an overwhelming event and this workshop briefed NGOs on what they could expect and how they could make their participation meaningful. This year’s annual meeting also introduced, for the first time CGI Exchange on 23rd September, a forum for members to showcase their projects and accomplishments at the Annual meeting. This exhibition event was an ideal opportunity to learn about commitments, explore partnerships and network with other members.

On Wednesday September 24, CGI hosted a media relations training session led by Derwin Johnson, a veteran journalist with the leading PR company, APCO to prepare members to showcase their commitments. The CGI is all about commitments and they are the primary mechanism by which CGI engages its members to take action. The CGI is structured as plenary and working sessions. The plenary sessions organized as panel discussions help participants gain insights into the larger context of the world/s most pressing challenges. The working sessions enabled members to learn from global topic experts and fellow members and were designed to transform ideas into action.

In the opening plenary session President Clinton engaged Queen Rania, Al-Abdullah of Jordan, President Johnson-Sirleaf of Liberia, Rock star Bono, Nobel Laureate Al Gore and E. Neville Isdell, Chairman of the Board of Coca Cola company in an action oriented discussion on the major challenges that the CGI was focussing on this year: education, energy and climate change, global health and poverty alleviation. There was also an opening day plenary on “Generating profits, jobs and equitable growth”. Day 1 ended with a conversation between President Clinton and Bill Gates on philanthropy and giving.

President Clinton opened the second day of the Clinton Global Initiative Annual Meeting by introducing both Senators John McCain and Barack Obama, who delivered remarks to CGI members and those viewing online. The two presidential candidates spoke about issues related to CGI's focus areas. A plenary session focussed on meeting the demands of population growth and urbanization and there was also a special session on climate change and poverty.

I attended the working group sessions on energy and climate change. There were four working group sessions :

Ending energy waste:_ This session highlighted ways to improve energy efficiency as it was the quickest, easiest and cheapest method of fighting global warming.

Renewables revolution: This session explored the global growth of renewable energy which we were told was now growing at record rates. It reported that solar entrepreneurs were making vast fortunes in China, that wind power provided 30 percent of new power in the United States last year and more than 20 percent of total power in Denmark. Iceland had made great strides in geothermal energy. However market barriers, erratic and inconsistent regulatory regimes, high cost of some technologies and lack of knowledge blocked progress because of which renewable energy provided only a tiny percentage of global energy needs.

The session on clean transportaddressed the scenario where in the next two decades the number of cars and trucks on the planet would grow from roughly 800 million to 2 billion. It discussed the alternative of electric vehicles recharged from clean renewable sources.

The session on “Local Leadership” suggested that leadership on climate change was emerging from the ground up around the world. The need for local leadership was critical as roughly half the world’s population lived in urban areas and urban population was expected to grow by more than 500 million people in the decades ahead.

The Advisory Board for the working group sessions included Wesley Clark, Former Army General, Senior Fellow, UCLA’s Burkle Center for International Relations; Director, Emergya Wind Technologies, BV, Abby Joseph Cohen, Global Markets Institute and Senior Investment Strategist, Goldman Sachs & Co. Shirley Ann Jackson, President, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Van Jones, Founder and President, Green for All, Yolanda Kakabadse, Adviser, Fundación Futuro Latinoamericano, Peggy Liu, Founder and Chairperson, Joint U.S.-China Co-operation on Clean Energy, Wangari Muta Maathai, Founder, Green Belt Movement, Kenya, Julia Marton-Lefèvre, Director General, International Union for Conservation of Nature – IUCN, Billy Parish, Co-Founder, Energy Action Coalition, Carl Pope, Executive Director, Sierra Club, William Reilly, Senior Advisor, TPG Capital, LP and Achim Steine, Executive Director, United Nations Environment Programme.

The focus of the sessions was largely on reducing emissions. The developing country perspectives of improving energy access to rural communities, mainstreaming women’s energy needs, were not discussed. Biomass the major energy source in the underdeveloped, equatorial region did not feature in the discussions on renewable energy.

The CGI 2008 recognized extraordinary individuals who had demonstrated visionary leaderhship in solving pressing global challenges with the Clinton Global Citizen Award. The event was hosted by Maria Bartiromo, and featured musical performances by Youssou Ndour and James Taylor. The recipients of the Clinton Global Citizen Awards were Jennifer and Peter Buffett, Co-chairs, NoVo Foundation, Xiaoyi (Sheri) Liao Founder and President, Global Village of Beijing, Julio Frenk, Senior Fellow, Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation & President, Carso Health Institute and Neville Isdell Chairman of the Board, the Coca-Cola Company.

At the conclusion of the Annual Meeting President Clinton announced the global impact of the CGI where 250 new commitments valued at US$ 8 billion to improve 158 million lives were unveiled. These included commitments to avoid 44 million tons of CO2, creation of enough clean energy to power equivalent of 7 million homes in the US commitment for billion solar lights etc. Prime Minister Gordon Brown joined President Clinton in addressing CGI members at the meeting’s closing session. Prime Minister Brown made a “call to action” to governments, businesses, NGOs and faith-based groups to focus resources and effort on delivering the Millennium Goals by 2015.

By Svati Bhogle - TIDE http://www.tide-india.org/