Soren E. Lütken holds a PhD in assessing European energy utilities’ investment strategies with respect to UNFCCC investment vehicles such as CDM. Further, he combines an MBA background with experience from 10 years of service in the Danish Ministry of Foreign Affairs, tasked with multilateral finance advice and Danish bilateral climate change collaboration with China.
His approach to the energy sector is financial and political rather than technical. He has been working with Energy Service Companies (ESCOs) in Eastern Europe with e.g. EBRD financing in the 1990s, private energy infrastructure financing in Asia in the late 1990s, CDM investment, mainly wind energy and hydro projects, in India and China from 2003 onwards, and ESCO concept development in China’s steel sector in 2008-2010.
Since joining the UNEP DTU (now UNEP Copenhagen Climate Centre) and its climate change-focused advisory in 2010 his work has focused on the linkage between energy investments and the politically controlled frameworks that determine investment conditions. He initiated the Global ESCO Network in 2019, realizing the missing link between the climate change agenda and the obvious role of ESCOs in emissions reduction.
He has authored two books and several working papers, including ‘Corporate Strategies and the CDM – developing country financing for developed country commitments?’ published in 2008, ‘Financial Engineering of Climate Investment in Developing Countries’ published in 2014 and several guidebooks on climate action and sector-specific energy efficiency implementation, including UNFCCC Guidance.
He is the author of two books on climate finance (published at Edward Elgar & Anthem Press respectively) as well as numerous guides and working papers on NAMAs and climate finance.
