Clean Heat Forum
About the GlobalABC Clean Heat Forum
The GlobalABC Clean Heat Forum, launched at COP26 in Glasgow, is an international collaborative effort between national governments, NGOs, and companies to share policy best practices and advance global policy away from fossil fuels in the heating sector and to drive building level efficiency.
Around 17.5% of global greenhouse gas emissions are direct emissions from the buildings sector, primarily the result of processes to meet space and water heating demand. While we have clean heating solutions — like highly efficient heat pumps, district energy solutions, deep retrofits, and better building design — at our fingertips, adoption rates have not aligned with what it will take to meet net zero emissions by mid-century and these solutions remain inaccessible to many.
By bringing public and private sector leaders together, the Clean Heat Forum fills a critical gap, enabling participants to co-create and share best practice policies, standards, regulations and public engagement strategies to reduce one of the largest sources of climate-disrupting emissions. Accelerated deployment of efficient and clean heating technologies, appropriate building design, and associated solutions will also help reduce health and energy burdens, increasing prosperity and creating more employment.
Clean Heat Forum co-leads and members
Co-leads
- Department for Energy Security and Net Zero (DESNZ), United Kingdom
- Energy and Climate Change Directorate, Scottish Government
- E3G - Third Generation Environmentalism (providing secretariat)
- Regulatory Assistance Project (RAP) (providing secretariat)
Members
The Clean Heat Forum has over 100 members including those from national governments, businesses, and civil society.
Activities
Recognising the pivotal role of heating systems in both residential and commercial buildings, the Clean Heat Forum zeroes in on the transformation of heat generation and distribution technologies. By prioritising clean, efficient, and renewable heating solutions, the Hub aims to mitigate greenhouse gas emissions, improve air quality, and enhance energy security. The Clean Heat Forum fills a critical gap, enabling participants to co-create and share best practices, policies, standards, and public engagement strategies to reduce one of the largest sources of climate-disrupting emissions.
The forum holds quarterly meetings of all members and also runs a government-to-government exchange forum. The forum facilitates the exchange of ideas and best practices, the co-creation of standards, and makes the case for accelerated action and collaboration for building heating decarbonization. Quarterly meetings serve as a dynamic platform for engaging with government representatives, advancing policy agendas, building capacity, fostering collaboration, and monitoring progress towards clean heating transitions. The government exchange series enables the sharing of policy best practices, and policy challenges directly between policymakers dealing with the challenge of clean heating.
The Clean Heat Forum is currently developing a global policy tracker for clean heating which will allow policy comparison between countries and could one day support the development of joint commitments on heating.
2024-2025 Priorities
- Continue the Public Policies Working Group and Government-to-Government exchange session quarterly.
- Publish Clean Heat Tracker
- Ad hoc engagements at relevant international fora e.g. COP, CEM/MI, Buildings Forum, etc.
Contact and how to join
To join the GlobalABC Clean Heat Forum, a stakeholder or government should ideally be a member of the GlobalABC and can apply here.
If you wish to join the Clean Heat Forum or need more information, please contact the Clean Heat Forum Secretariat at [email protected].
