UAE | Environment
UAE has strong case to host Irena, but Bonn is best: Scheer
German economist surprised by amount of support gained for Abu Dhabi's 'last minute' bid to provide headquarters.
- By Abbas Al Lawati, Staff Reporter
- Published: 23:13 June 28, 2009
Sharm Al Shaikh: The German economist known as the Father of the International Renewable Energy Agency (Irena) has said Abu Dhabi has a strong and credible case for its bid to host the agency's headquarters.
Hermann Scheer, member of the Bundestag (parliament), member of the German delegation in Sharm Al Shaikh, and the brains behind Irena stood by his argument that the German city of Bonn is the best place to host the body in an interview with Gulf News, but said Abu Dhabi was a serious contender for it.
Both countries have been lobbying Irena member states to vote in their favour in Sharm Al Shaikh on Sunday.
Scheer had been calling for the establishment of an international body for renewable energy for the past two decades. Now that one is finally being set up, he believes Germany is where it should be.
Germany, he said, had been confident that it would succeed in bringing the body to Bonn, but was surprised at the UAE's "last minute" bid to host it and the amount of support it has gathered in such a short time.
For 20 years, Scheer said, sceptics and parties with deep routed interests in the fossil fuel industry resisted renewable energy projects, until Germany decided to take the lead in 2000.
An ardent advocate of renewable energy, Scheer rubbished critics who say that the cost of the technology is not proportional to its returns.
The UAE, for example, has pledged to invest billions of dirhams in renewable energy projects locally and through Irena, but renewable energy is expected to fulfil only seven per cent of the country's energy needs by 2020, which in itself is considered an ambitious target.
Scheer said all states that started with small targets exceeded their expectations once their renewable energy programmes had started. He cited Germany's experience, which continuously and unexpectedly surpassed its targets for renewable energy.
"In 2000, we had targeted to have renewable energy meet 12 per cent of our needs. Today, in 2009, we have already reached 19 per cent," he said. "Renewable energy has immediate returns. The only major cost is the initial one".
He went further, saying the day that states can rely solely on renewable energy is not far away.
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