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How will energy efficiency play a role in helping the world deliver on the promise of the Paris Agreement? Which nations are out front, and which are lagging behind? James speaks with Benoit Lebot, head of the International Partnership for Energy Efficiency Cooperation. It's an autonomous partnership of nations founded in 2009 by the G8 to promote collaboration on energy efficiency. Its member countries work together to accelerate the adoption of energy efficiency policies and practices. 

In May, Renewable Cities hosted the State-City Collaboration on Clean Energy Transformations in Vancouver, British Columbia. The conference focused on the role that communities will play in the energy transition, and the opportunities for local and senior levels of government to develop shared policy clean energy policies. For this special episode, host James Glave sat down with Mike McKeever, Senior Advisor to Sacramento, CA Mayor Darrell Steinberg, Ken Alex, Director, Project Climate at UC Berkeley, and former Director of the California Governor’s Office of Planning and Research, and Alex Boston, Execuctive Director of Renewable Cities. Special thanks to Renewable Cities and Robert Ouimet of Podcast House for technical assistance and support.

Greg Wetstone is the President and CEO of the American Council on Renewable Energy, or ACORE, a national nonprofit organization that unites finance, policy and technology to accelerate the transition to a renewable energy economy. ACORE's hundreds of members span renewable energy technologies and constituencies, including developers, manufacturers, top financial institutions, major corporate renewable energy buyers, grid technology providers, utilities, and others.

Ann Edminster is an international expert on zero-energy highly efficient homes, and is the author of Energy Free, a guide for designers and builders who wish to create zero energy homes. She's also a director of the Net Zero Energy Coalition, which works to accelerate market adoption of net-zero energy homes and communities across North America.

Rana Adib is the Executive Secretary of REN21, also known as the Renewable Energy Network of the 21st Century. Adib and her team oversee a network of hundreds of researchers and academics, as well as industry, civil society, and government leaders, all tracking renewable energy investment and adoption, sharing findings, best practices and more. REN21's Global Status Report is a tour de force of the state of the worldwide shift to renewable energy. The 2019 edition will be out in June.

Bob Weisenmiller oversees the energy policy and planning of a state that is home to 39 million people. California is not only the 5th largest economy in the world, it is also a global clean energy and climate action leader. I sat down with Chairman Weisen miller in early September, at the Global Climate Action Summit in San Francisco. A few days prior, Governor Brown had issued an executive order requiring the state to reach overall carbon neutrality by 2045—the most ambitious climate commitment to date by any political leader, anywhere. And Bob Weisenmiller chairs the state agency charged with making it happen.

Google, Amazon, Apple, AT&T, Facebook and others have shown the world that utility-scale wind and solar power have what it takes to keep the lights on and the server farms humming in corporate America. Now, other companies—Budweiser, anyone?—are stepping up to the plate.  In this episode we speak with Ali Rotatori of the Business Renewables Center at the Rocky Mountain Institute, and learn how familiar brands are part of the solution.

Is it even possible to decarbonize the global energy system? We ask Laszlo Varro, the chief economist for the International Energy Agency. The agency provides policy advice to its member nations, and others, and produces one of the most credible energy supply and demand forecasts in the world.