18 June 2012: The Multilateral Investment Fund of the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) and Bloomberg New Energy Finance created the Climatescope, the first annual report, index, and interactive web tool aimed at scoring the clean energy market in Latin America and the Caribbean. This tool was released during the UN Conference on Sustainable Development (UNCSD, or Rio+20).

The Climatescope ranks 26 countries on their relative abilities to foster low-carbon energy growth using 30 indicators to measure the ability of each country to attract capital to build a greener economy, aggregated into scores from 0 to 5, with 5 representing the best investment environment. Countries were ranked based on: enabling framework; clean energy investments and low-carbon financing; low-carbon business and clean energy value chains; and greenhouse gas (GHG) management activities. The highest ranked country was Brazil, but it only scored 2.6, indicating that signifiant opportunities remain to improve and attract more capital for low-carbon and renewable energy capacity. Brazil was closely followed by Nicaragua, Panama, Peru and Chile.

Nancy Lee, MIF’s General Manager, highlighted that Climatescope’s combination of information on finance, policy, and market opportunities will assist in attracting greater green investment in Latin America and the Caribbean. [IDB Press Release] [Climatescope Website]