IRENA Concludes its Eighteenth Council

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High-level representatives from 124 member countries attended the 18th meeting of the IRENA Council, held on November 5 and 6, 2019, 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. One of the key aspects of the discussions was IRENA’s plan to take a more regional and sub regional approach to its programmatic activities. Griffin Thompson, Director of the Office of Electricity and Energy Efficiency at the U.S. Department of State, supported this approach stating, “The reality of the renewable energy transition is that there are multiple transitions and pathways. We support IRENA’s proposal to work at a more regional & sub-regional level, which speaks to these nuances.”

In alignment with the Agency’s plans, Mr. La Camera announced the appointment of Gauri Singh, Additional Chief Secretary and Development Commissioner of Madhya Pradesh and former Director of IRENA’s Country Support and Partnerships Division, as the new IRENA Deputy Director-General.

On its second day, the Council’s meeting followed up on discussions from the UN Climate Action Summit in New York as they related to NDC implementation and the Climate Investment Platform. The Climate Investment Platform, a partnership between IRENA, SEforALL, and UNDP, in coordination with Green Climate Fund, aims to declutter and streamline support to developing countries by accelerating action and advancing investments.

On behalf of UNDP, Pradeep Kurukulasuriya, Executive Coordinator/Director, Global Environmental Finance, Global Policy Network, spoke to Council members about the IRENA, UNDP collaboration. “Our partnership is a merging of IRENA’s energy knowledge with UNDP’s backbone of country offices and on-the-ground capabilities – a commonality of purpose, where UNDP draws on IRENA's expertise to accelerate the 2030 agenda.”

During the Council, two side events took place. The first, led by IRENA’s programmatic division directors, explored the issues facing countries with high shares of renewable energy, highlighting the importance of dialogue and the exchange of experiences amongst countries as well as offering IRENA’s committed support to enhance this dialogue.

The second side event Decarbonising Complex Sectors: Paving the Way Towards a Carbon-Free Economy led by IRENA IITC Director Dolf Gielen, discussed the role renewables, green hydrogen, and advanced biofuels can play in decarbonising challenging sectors such as heavy industry, shipping, and aviation.

 

In closing, the Council discussed the upcoming IRENA Assembly on 11 and 12 January 2020 in Abu Dhabi.

 

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