International organization for renewable energies

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International Renewable Energy Organization
( IRENA )
logo
purpose Promotion of renewable energies
Chair: Francesco La Camera (2019)
Establishment date: January 26, 2009
Number of members: 160 member states (2019)
Seat : Masdar ( United Arab Emirates )
Website: www.irena.org
Ratification status of the membership agreement of the International Renewable Energy Agency (as of November 3, 2019): Countries that have signed and ratified the agreement Countries that have signed the agreement but not yet ratified it



The International Renewable Energy Agency (English: I nternational R enewable En ergy A gency ; abbreviation: IRENA ), based in the eco-city Masdar City in the United Arab Emirates is an international governmental organization with the aim of promoting comprehensive and sustainable use of renewable energy all over the world.

As of November 2019, 160 countries and the European Union are members of IRENA. In addition, 23 states are in the process of ratifying the membership agreement. The statutes of the organization came into force on July 8, 2010, the 30th day after the 25th ratification (Art. XIX lit. D of the statutes).

At the beginning of 2019, the IRENA Assembly elected Francesco La Camera as the next General Director of IRENA. From April 2011 to the beginning of 2019, the Kenyan Adnan Z. Amin was Director General of IRENA. Amin had already acted as interim director for a few months after his predecessor Hélène Pelosse surprisingly resigned after less than a year and a half in office.

Together with the International Energy Agency (IEA), IRENA is of outstanding importance on energy issues in general and on issues relating to renewable energies in particular.

Foundation and activities

IRENA was founded on January 26th, 2009 with the signing of the statutes by 75 states in Bonn. At the first meeting of the Preparatory Commission , the temporary body through which IRENA will be embodied until the 25th ratification of the Statute, the signatory states agreed on the rules and selection process for the Provisional Director General and the headquarters of IRENA. In addition, members were encouraged to submit nominations and applications for the seat and director general by April 30, 2009. At the second meeting of the preparatory commission on June 29 and 30, 2009 in Egypt (Sharm El Sheikh), a joint decision was made on the seat and the general director, after which the seat of the IRENA will be in Abu Dhabi, in Bonn the seat of an innovation and technology center, while a liaison and contact office with the UN in the field of energy and other international institutions is being set up in Vienna. By then, a seat, a general director and an administrative committee had been set up to prepare the content of the second meeting. Further items on the agenda for Egypt include the adoption of a work program, the budget and the financial and personnel regulations for IRENA, which will apply to the transition phase in 2009 and 2010. As of July 27, 2009, 136 countries had declared their accession to IRENA.

Three years after it was founded, the organization is picking up speed due to the rapid increase in membership. In various analyzes and papers, IRENA has compiled extensive data on the global expansion of renewable energies. In addition to the overview of the cost situation of renewable energies in 2012, the GlobalAtlas , which will be supplemented and expanded in the coming years, is particularly important. This provides information for investors about the potential of renewable energies in various countries. There is also already a strategy on the subject of capacity building , i. H. Providing information, education and training on renewable energies.

According to the Remap 2030 study , which was published by IRENA in 2015, the share of renewable energies in global energy demand will rise to 21 to 26 percent by 2030, depending on how ambitious the political measures are.

IRENA publishes regular reports on the development of renewable energies. According to the 2014/15 annual report, new investments worldwide in renewable energies exceeded investments in the conventional sector in 2015. At the same time, with 7.7 million jobs, they contributed more to global employment than conventional energies.

history

The first proposal for an international agency for renewable energies was made in 1980 in the report of the North-South Commission chaired by Willy Brandt . Since then, its establishment has been the subject of efforts by interest groups, in particular Eurosolar , the World Council for Renewable Energies (WCRE) and the World Wind Energy Association , which has been campaigning for the establishment of IRENA since 2003. The Austrian federal government under Chancellor Franz Vranitzky proposed such an agency to the UN General Assembly in 1990.

In order to prepare for its foundation, a preparatory conference was held in Berlin in April 2008 at the invitation of the German government and with the participation of representatives from 54 countries. The German politician Hermann Scheer , who died in October 2010 , played a major role in the success of IRENA. At the final preparatory conference for the founding of the organization on October 23 and 24, 2008 in Madrid, 51 states agreed on the statutes of this new global organization.

The entire preparatory process was implemented by the Federal Environment Ministry and the Federal Development Ministry in close cooperation with the Federal Foreign Office .

Motivations

The reasons for setting up the organization are given in a basic paper by the federal government of April 10, 2008:

A predicted growth of world population in 2050 to about 9.2 billion people would be on further economic growth and industrialization cause of various countries that the global demand for energy increases sharply. Non-renewable energy sources would thus be depleted even faster.

Fossil fuels and nuclear power would also be increasingly difficult to use, and rising costs would be expected. This would be evidenced by the development of the oil price in 2007 and 2008. The consequence of these price increases would be negative effects on the balance of payments of “low-income economies”.

The global warming is to be limited to a maximum of two degrees, to want " greenhouse gas emissions be reduced by 2050 compared to 1990 levels by at least 50%". This is intended to reduce economic losses caused by this climate change . In this context, reference is made to the Stern Report , according to which this damage could amount to up to 20% of the global gross domestic product annually .

The fourth reason given is the fact that over 1.6 billion people have no access to electricity because it would be uneconomical to integrate it into existing energy networks. The fossil fuels used as a substitute would also have "often harmful consequences". The paper implies at this point that the establishment of IRENA could contribute to solving this problem.

aims

According to its statutes, it is IRENA's goal as a “driving force” to promote the widespread and increased use and sustainable use of renewable energies worldwide.

IRENA strives to provide practical advice and support to industrialized and developing countries, to provide assistance in adapting the regulatory framework and to help develop skills. The agency will improve access to relevant information such as reliable data on the potential of renewable energies, best practice presentations, effective funding mechanisms and the latest technical know-how.

IRENA will develop comprehensive solutions that include all forms of renewable energy and take into account different policy approaches at local, regional and national level. In doing so, IRENA will observe the special ecological, economic and socio-cultural framework conditions. In addition, IRENA will work closely with organizations and networks that are already active in the field of renewable energies. Actors from the energy industry, universities, public institutions and civil society should also be involved in the work.

literature

  • Glen Wright: The International Renewable Energy Agency: A Global Voice for the Renewable Energy Era? In: Renewable Energy Law and Policy Review 2 (2011), pp. 251-268.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ IRENA Membership. irena.org, accessed November 3, 2019 .
  2. ↑ a b c Statutes of the International Organization for Renewable Energies of January 26, 2009 ( Federal Law Gazette II p. 634, 635 , bilingual).
  3. ^ Ines Bresler: 10 years of the International Renewable Energy Agency . The renewables agency today. In: Irm Scheer-Ponenagel (ed.): Solar age . Politics, culture and economics of renewable energies. Volume 31, No. 1/2019 . Eurosolar eV, 2019, ISSN  0937-3802 (pp. 8-9).
  4. ↑ IRENA: Fifth session of Preparatory Commission for the IRENA and designation of Director-General , message on the IRENA website of April 3, 2011
  5. ↑ IRENA: Adnan Amin to perform the duties of Interim Director-General of IRENA from October 20, 2010
  6. ↑ Alois Schaffarczyk (Ed.): Introduction to Windenergietechnik , Munich 2012, p. 83.
  7. ↑ http://www.solarportal24.de/nachrichten_27273_abu_dhabi_wird_hauptsitz_der_internationalen_agentur_fuer_ern.html
  8. ^ Preparatory Commission of IRENA , accessed May 13, 2009, 4:48 p.m. (CEST)
  9. ↑ International Renewable Energy Agency: IRENA. (PDF) Signatory States. (No longer available online.) In: irena.org. IRENA, July 27, 2009, archived from the original on August 7, 2009 ; accessed on August 13, 2020 (English).
  10. ↑ IRENA: Reports and papers
  11. ↑ REMAP 2030 homepage
  12. ↑ IRENA: 2014-2015: At Glance
  13. ↑ EUROSOLAR memorandum on the establishment of an international organization for renewable energies (IRENA) , May 2001, accessed on July 16, 2008, 10:20 pm (CEST)
  14. ^ Resolution of the 2nd World Wind Energy Conference in Cape Town / South Africa ( Memento from October 31, 2014 in the Internet Archive )
  15. ↑ IRENA was founded on January 26th, 2009 in Bonn. Hermann Scheer has been campaigning for the establishment of an international agency for renewable energies (IRENA) for years. In: www.hermannscheer.de. Hermann Scheer Foundation, 2014, accessed on August 13, 2020 .
  16. ↑ The long way to IRENA - a chronology 19 years after the first idea and many advances, the foundation of this new world organization is imminent. (PDF) In: www.hermannscheer.de. Eurosolar , July 30, 2009, accessed August 13, 2020 .
  17. ^ Hermann Scheer : Hermann Scheer's speech in the German Bundestag on the establishment of an international agency for renewable energies (IRENA), on June 19, 2008 for the record. In: www.hermannscheer.de. Hermann Scheer Foundation, June 19, 2008, accessed on August 13, 2020 .
  18. ↑ Press release of the BMU / BMZ: One more step towards setting up an International Renewable Energies Agency , accessed on August 1, 2008, 10 p.m. (CEST)
  19. ↑ Basic paper for the preparatory conference for the foundation of IRENA (PDF), accessed on July 16, 2008, 9:50 pm
  20. ^ Establishing an international agency for renewable energies (PDF), accessed on May 13, 2009