UAE pushes for energy agency office

NEW YORK // The Government is promoting its bid to play host to the headquarters of a global green-energy body by calling for support from 117 fellow independent nations at a summit in Cuba. Speaking in Havana, a UAE Minister of State, Reem al Hashimi, called on members of the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) to back Abu Dhabi's campaign to host the head office of the International Renewable Energy Agency.

The Government faces stiff competition from the rival host cities of Bonn, Germany, and the Austrian capital, Vienna. "The UAE hopes to obtain the support of the movement for its proposal to host the headquarters of the International Renewable Energy Agency in Abu Dhabi," Ms al Hashimi told delegates on Thursday. "We are confident that the activities of this agency will significantly serve the needs of the developing countries. Therefore, the choice of the seat of the International Renewable Energy Agency in one of the member states of the movement will be of considerable importance to the developing countries," she added.

Irena members, who now number 78, will select an interim headquarters at a meeting next month in Egypt. "Irena was established for finding effective solutions for the increasing international needs of energy, reducing the degradation of the environment and slowing down global climate changes," Ms al Hashimi said. Despite its huge reserves of fossil fuels, the UAE already has taken a significant stake in the renewable energy industry. Masdar, the future energy company owned by the Abu Dhabi Government, is a major investor in a host of new energy technologies, including solar power. Construction has started on a zero-carbon suburb on the fringes of the capital, Masdar City, which would provide a home for the Irena headquarters if the UAE were successful in its bid.

The Government has announced a target to provide seven per cent of Abu Dhabi's electricity-generating capacity from renewables by 2020. Many European nations are targeting 20 per cent by that time. Irena will work with the International Energy Agency (IEA), a unit of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development based in Paris that compiles data on both conventional and renewable energy and advocates on behalf of energy-consuming nations.

But Irena would devote significantly more resources to compiling data on renewable energy than the IEA, which allocates only Dh1.84 million (US$500,000) to the sector, according to Hans Jorgen Koch, the deputy state secretary at the Danish ministry of climate and energy, and a former director at the IEA. Mr Koch has said Irena's budget would be 50 times larger than that allocated to renewables at the IEA.

Mr Koch has argued that the IEA's conservative forecasts for renewable energy do not accurately describe the strong growth of the sector.
jreinl@thenational.ae