hello irena

IRENA: International Renewable Energy Agency:  the first multinational agency focused solely on spreading clean energy across the globe, officially launched this week, according to the Environmental News Network

The expectation of this group is that they will assist countries and private industries in the expansion of alternative energy installations.  “IRENA will help to remove the many obstacles which up to now have delayed the rapid expansion of renewables,” said Sigmar Gabriel, the German federal environment minister, in a conference address [PDF]. “The market is still distorted by subsidies for conventional energies, technological know-how is inadequate, information is not always correct.”

The initial conference was attended by 120 delegates from various nations, and the resulting treaty was signed by 75 countries, including Germany, Spain, United Arab Emirates and Kenya.  The United States, United Kingdom, Japan, China and Australia have yet to join, but have stated that they may still join in the future.

As was reported a month back, the United Arab Emirates is taking a stand for renewable energies and stated that it joined IRENA to provide energy expertise to the renewable energy sector and broaden support for its Masdar City project - a plan to create an entirely carbon-neutral, zero-waste city.

The increase in renewable energy installations is very positive.  In 2008 alone, about 12,000 megawatts of wind power capacity were installed, bringing the global total to 106,100 megawatts, according to the World Wind Energy Association. In addition, 9,740 megawatts of cumulative solar photovoltaic (PV) systems and at least 6,000 megawatts of geothermal energy projects have been installed, according to the Worldwatch Institute and U.N. Environment Programme, respectively.

As always, we are pleased with the increase of attention on taking action and fixing this problem, instead of arguing about is it real and where the responsibility lies.

* photo by Robert Scoble via Flickr