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Add to Preferred SourcesHigh-level representatives from 124 member countries attended the 18th meeting of the IRENA Council, held in Abu Dhabi, to review the Agency’s progress and explore its future plans to accelerate the global energy transformation to ensure a sustainable, climate-safe future.
Council Chair Mr. Guy Lentz, Luxemburg Coordinator for the EU and Inter Energy Issues, set the tone of the discussions by encouraging IRENA Council delegates to strive for a fair energy transition through renewables.
IRENA Director-General Francesco La Camera echoed the Council Chair by emphasizing the central role renewable energy plays in both sustainable development and climate action.
“This morning, we reflected on the profound shift in the global energy dynamics which will result in a very different world in the coming decades. The evolution of the existing energy architecture into a low-carbon and economically vibrant system is central to the global strategy on sustainable development and climate,” he said.
Ambitious renewable energy targets are now common in many countries, however, Mr. La Camera identified the gap between deployment goals and the investments necessary to achieve them as the biggest challenge facing the energy transformation.
To bridge this gap and accelerate the rate of energy transformation to meet climate goals, the Director-General proposed to the Council a Work Programme and Budget that aims to make the Agency:
More proactive: monitoring trends and recognising opportunities.
More efficient: streamlining programmatic output to more impactful activities, with a decisive shift to action on the ground.
More collaborative: developing partnerships with implementing partners, such as UNDP, taking advantage of IRENA’s significant knowledge and convening power to catalyse action on the ground.
Council members lauded the Agency’s decisive shift to action on the ground, supporting the Director-General’s plans to improve programmatic engagement with all members, initiatives and partnerships.
Original source: IRENA
Published on 06 November 2019