Seventy-Five Nations Join New International
Renewable Energy Agency
Jan 28, 2009 - EERE Network News
The International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA)
was founded on Monday in Bonn, Germany, and 75 nations
have already signed a compact to join the new agency.
IRENA is an intergovernmental organization for renewable
energy, and it aims to become a driving force in
the promotion of a rapid transition towards the
widespread global use of renewable energy. While
there is already a World Council on Renewable Energy
(WCRE) to promote renewable energy policies, IRENA
is a political institution that is intended to act
as a counterbalance to the International Atomic
Energy Agency and the International Energy Agency,
which represents only 28 industrialized, democratic
nations (that is, most members of the Organisation
for Economic Co-operation and Development). The
75 founding nations of IRENA include Germany, Spain,
France, Denmark, Norway, and Sweden, all of which
are IEA members, as well as Turkey, the United Arab
Emirates, Egypt, India, Nigeria, Kenya, Chile, and
Colombia, among others. IRENA was proposed in 1990
by Herman Scheer, president of the European Association
for Renewable Energies and chair of the WCRE.
According to that Web site, IRENA will facilitate
access to reliable data on the potential of renewable
energy, as well as information about best practices,
effective financial mechanisms, and the state of
the art in renewable energy technologies. The agency
will also develop and promote renewable energy policies
on the local, regional, and national level. It will
also consult and cooperate with organizations and
networks already engaged in renewable energy to
complement and pool their resources, while drawing
on input from the energy industry, academia, institutions,
and civilians. The United States has not yet joined
the agency, but an invitation to join has been sent
to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, who was sworn
into office on January 21. According to the American
Council On Renewable Energy (ACORE), the United
States was represented at the founding meeting by
an observer from the U.S. Embassy in Berlin.