New global agency to spur development of renewable energy

19 May 2009

The preliminary work programme meeting of the newly-formed International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA), set up this year to spearhead a global drive to accelerate and expand development of renewable energy resources, will meet at Sharm el Sheik, on the southern tip of the Sinai Peninsula, in Egypt.
 
The event will be attended by delegates from 79 countries, including India.

The agency originated out of a conference in Bonn, sponsored by the government of Germany and supported by Denmark and Spain. Of the 192 UN member states invited to the conference held on 26 January, 125 sent delegations and 75 European and emerging countries signed on the final agreement establishing the agency.

Since then four more countries have joined including Mauritania. Other member countries include leading European economies like Germany and France, and emerging economies like India. Major energy producers like Norway and Nigeria and its hostile african neighbours like Eritrea and Ethiopia, Israel and Syria are also part of the intiative.

Major countries like the US, China, Britain and Brazil have not yet joined though the US is likely to do so according to, Hermann Scheer, a member of the Bundestag, the lower house of the German Parliament.

Very few countries ''have adequate and comprehensive programmes for renewable energy, ''  Scheer said, ''The others do not, and they need them urgently.''

Scheer, who is an economist by training and general chairman of the World Council for Renewable Energy, an advocacy group, has worked to establish the global organisation for almost two decades. He remains one of the most outspoken advocates for renewable energy.