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Global Geothermal Alliance initiated by several countries and organisations

Global Geothermal Alliance initiated by several countries and organisations United Nations, East River, and Tudor City from Kips Bay (Source: Flick, Jeffrey Zeldman, Creative Commons)
Francisco Rojas 25 Sep 2014

In an announcement following the UN Climate Summit 2014 at the UN Headquarters in New York, a new Global Geothermal Alliance Action Statement and Action Plan was introduced.

Over the years there have been many initiatives trying to get the global community to support and value the opportunities provided by geothermal. Many countries have been pushing in various international forums, such as IRENA, the UN and the World Bank.

One of the driving forces behind this initiative was the tireless efforts of Benedikt Höskuldsson, Director for Natural Resources and Environmental Affairs at Iceland’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

In many discussions with industry and government representatives and IRENA, he won many supporters for this initiative. Now, Heads of Delegation of Iceland, [Bolivia, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Djibouti, Ecuador, Ethiopia, Fiji, France, Grenada, Indonesia, Italy, Kenya, Mexico, Nicaragua, Peru, the Philippines, Rwanda together with the World Bank Group, the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB), the International Renewable Energy Agency
(IRENA), the African Union are represented as supporters of this initiative. To serve as a platform for dialogue and knowledge-sharing among partners, the main goal is to increase the share of installed geothermal electricity and heat generation worldwide. Over the past few months I spoke with Mr. Höskuldsson on several occasions and encouraged him in his efforts to get the initiative on its feet. So to see this now up and running is great.

Congratulating him on the occasion, Benedikt Höskuldsson said “that this has been a lot of work and the dedication and relentless effort by IRENA in addition to seeing the initiative so prominently displayed at the Climate Summit in NY and to see it coming alive is a gratifying experience.
The main challenge for geothermal is how little attention it receives, and that early drilling risk still represents one of the main hurdles. But geothermal energy provides this tremendously large opportunity to provide clean electricity and heating to the world, that it is important we work together in order to see more deployment take place.

This Alliance will help to join and bundle forces and knowledge to overcome the challenges faced by the industry. By setting up, hopefully, a Secretariat within the International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA), the partners to the coalition will be able to formulate a much-needed Work Plan. I am certain that these efforts will increase geothermal development and I am quite pleased seeing this broad support and I truly hope that we will see an even greater support in the very near future.”

Source: UN