World News

UN Committee Calls for Global Initiatives in Energy

The UN Committee on New and Renewable Sources of Energy and on Energy for Development held a special session on February 6-17, 1995. The session was called to formulate advice on energy for rural development for the coming meeting of the Commission for Sustainable Development, CSD. The CSD has agriculture on the agenda of its next session, to be held on April 11-28, 1995, and will also discuss related energy questions. The committee, consisting of experts from 16 countries, proposed that the CSD invite all states, international organizations, and NGOs to: launch a global initiative, before the year 2000, to facilitate the efforts of the developing countries to bring electric power to the people in rural and isolated areas, based on renewable energy. The UNDP (UN Development Program), the World Bank, and the GEF (Global Environmental Facility) should take the lead in this; launch a global initiative, before the year 2000, to map renewable energy resources. The WMO (World Meteorological Organization), the FAO (Food and Agricultural Organization), the UNDP, and the UNEP (UN Environmental Program) should take the lead in this; establish, under UN auspices, a network of Centres of Excellence for environmentally sound energy technologies; study ways and means of strengthening institutional arrangements within the UN to advance energy for sustainable development and to stimulate the coordination of energy, including the possible establishment of a dedicated institution; make national energy plans, before the year 20000, for sustainable agriculture for countries that do not have such plans; give special attention, in national plans, to the use of biomass as well as to increasing energy efficiency in households and agro-industries.

Then it just remains to hope that the CSD in April will support the recommendations, and that they will be followed by countries as well as by organizations. This could finally pave the way for international cooperation and for institutions dedicated to sustainable energy development.

Source: C. Constantinou, Energy and Natural Resources Branch, Dept. for Policy Coordination and Sustainable Development, UN,New York, N.Y. 10017, USA,fax-1-212-963 1795.

World Bank Solar Initiative

The World Bank has begun a solar initiative, building on work already in progress under bilateral funding through the ESMAP (World Bank's Energy Sector Management Program) and similar other projects in the Bank.

The initiative has two objectives.

First, it will take a proactive role in project development, strengthening the World Bank's own involvement in and commitment to renewable energy (RE) projects. It will seek to include in World Bank lending large-scale grid connected power and industrial applications based on RE. At the same time, the Bank will not ignore opportunities to expand investments in small-scale, rural applications.

Second, the initiative seeks to play a coordinating, strategic, and catalytic role in promoting accelerated research, development, and demonstration of commercial and near-commercial RE ideas by building a network of partnerships with other international organizations as well as with countries.

Opportunities are already being investigated in:

- ongoing RE work in China to identify a suitable package of investment that can be proposed for Bank lending.

, preparation for an investment in Mexico IO establish a hybrid solar thermal/gas power plant of a capacity of possibly 2-300 MW.

- a biomass-gasification power plant and other projects in Brazil. Smallscale applications arc also an important objective of the project development efforts. The solar initiative will attempt to accelerate identification of projects and their development as packages or as components of World Bank projects, not only in the energy sector, but also in agriculture, health, education, and rural development.

The initiative will further include:

· internal workshops to raise the awarencss of Word Bank staff of RE;

· regional seminars directed at developing countries' public and private sector groups interested in commercializing RE. a series of reports with technical updates, guidance on financial and institutional arrangements, and proposals for strategic actions to move development of RE to full commercialization; cooperation with research institutions and others to make current international research, development, and dissemination programs more responsive to the needs of

· developing countries.

From the article "The World Bank Solar Initiative" by Achilles C. Adamantiades and Ernesto Terrado, Power Development, Efficiency, and Household Fuels Division of the Industry and Energy Department of the World Bank, ISIS H Street N.W., Washington DC 20433, USA.

The article was published in The ESMAP Connection, Dec.'94. In the coming issues of Sustainable Energy News we hope to bring more information on this.

 

Climate Negotiations and

Berlin Summit, 1995

The last INC (International Negotiating Committee) meeting in February did not give much hope for a successful Climate Convention Conference "Climate Summit" in Berlin, March 28 -April 7, 1995.

The major topic of the negotiations is how to react on the generally acknowledged fact that the commitments of the Climate Convention are insufficient to avoid harmful climate change.

The group of small island states, AOSIS, had submitted a protocol with proposals for 20% reductions in industrialized countries' CO2 emissions by the year 2005. OPEC, the oil exporting countries, and China were openly against new commitments for industrialized countries. A number of industrialized countries, including the USA, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand, were mostly inactive in the efforts to agree on new commitments. This left the countries of the European Union (KU) plus Switzerland, India, Argentina, and a few others as the most progressive larger countries. The EU and Japan are in favour of starting a two year negotiation period for a protocol on CO2 reductions in industrialized countries, as the main result of the Climate Summit. Even the start of negotiations on a protocol for reduction of C02-emmissions is not certain after this last INC meeting.

In Berlin, The Climate Action Network plans an NGO-conference, "Goals for Berlin", at which the INforSE campaign will be presented as well. Youth groups plan a Greenhouse Gathering in Berlin, April 1-8. On April 3, the main topic will be energy, and during the gathering, the renewable energy exhibition (see back page) will be shown in Berlin. Further information: see event list.

Beijing Conference on

Women, Women & Energy

INforSE, COSENI (The Consortium of Sustainable Energy Networks International) and other NGOs will form the renewable energy component of a major event at the NGO Forum of the UN Fourth World Conference on Women, Beijing, China, September 1995. The Once and Future Pavilion, will bring together women's groups, technology institutes, and development organizations.

INforSE members are encouraged to participate in this event. The organizers welcome case studies, position papers, educational materials (including videos or pamphlets), and equipment displaying women's experiences with different alternative energy sources.

INforSE activities coordinated by: Lalilia Balakrishnan, INforSE-ladia, clo All India Women's Conference, Sarojini House, 6 Bhagwandas Road, New Delhi - 110001, India. Ph.-+91-11-3896801389314. Info: INforSE.

COSENI coordinator: Linda Helm Krapf, PO Box 677, Long Valley, New Jersey 07853, USA. Ph.: +1-908-876-9698,fax: +1-908-876-5030. E-mail: krapf@eden.rutgers.edu.

International Meeting on

Renewable Energy

On January 9-12, 1995, the West African Coordinator of INforSE took part in an international meeting on new and renewable sources of energy in Denver, Colorado, USA. The meeting was organized by the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL in Denver) in cooperation with the NGO Africare. From INforSE West Africa, information was presented about ongoing projects in West Africa and about the activities conducted in the framework of INforSE. This meeting opens new opportunities for cooperation with

NREL.

Masse Lo, INforSE West Africa/ENDA (translated by the editors)

Worldwide Solar Fund:

Loan to...Experimentation

By Masse Lo, ENDA-Energi/INforSE Western Africa

The idea of a Worldwide Solar Fund (WSF, a proposal for the UNESCO Solar Summit, Paris, 1996) follows international recognization of the necessity of using renewable energy for sustainable development. The WSF proposal describes a financial mechanism that should help to bring together grants and loans for developing countries for financing of renewable energy projects. The fight against desertification should be considered as a main priority of the WSF.

It must be stated that the presentation of the document that describes the WSF is quite disappointing. The document simply repeats the ideas of the GEF (Global Environmental Facility). Only those projects are eligible for WSF that will have an impact on one of the four major problems defined by the GEF. The objective of favouring a rural development is only given secondary emphasis. The document only mentions renewable energy plants as experimental. Also the important south-south cooperation on renewable energy technologies is not addressed appropriately.

In Senegal, we have tried to propose modifications in the documents for the conference in Harare, Zimbabwe (March 1995, regional preparation conference for the UNESCO Solar Summit). We call for other organizations lo do the same in their respective countries. The Secretariat of the INforSE network should try to start a large international movement to influence the process of establishing the WSF. A first step should be to forward the ideas, which we will develop, is an electronic conference. The ideal would be to organise lobbying before and during the Harare conference (and the other coming regional Solar Summit conferences in other developing regions).

'Translated and shortened by the editors, we hope to bring more information and views on the Solar Summit proposals in the coming issues.

World Wind Success

Preliminary information points at 1994 as a new record year for implementation of windpower. The worldwide installed capacity of large windlurbines was around 700 MW. 45% of this was produced in Denmark. Germany, USA, Holland and India as well as other countries also have regular production of larger windturbines. The main users of larger windturbines in 1994 were Germany, India, United Kingdom, USA, Holland, Denmark, Ireland, China and Sweden. In Denmark, the installation rate grew again in 1994, 52 MW were installed.

Sources: Vindmolleindustrien, Denmark and others.