Global Policy Forum

By Geir Moulson

More than 150 nations pledged Friday to promote alternative energy sources "with a sense of urgency," closing a global conference marked by warnings about the vulnerability of world oil supplies to terrorism.

The Renewables 2004 conference set no specific global targets, but approved an "international action program" of 192 projects by governments and international organizations to further wind, solar, geothermal and other energies. A final declaration said governments "reaffirm their commitment to substantially increase with a sense of urgency the global share of renewable energy in the total energy supply."

The outcome received a generally positive response from environmental groups. World Wildlife Fund activist Stephan Singer said it moved the cause of renewable energies "dramatically forward." "We think it's the best possible document for the time being," he said, adding that his organization was happy "to see that countries like the United States, Saudi Arabia and others committed (to the idea that) that renewable energies are a major part of the future."

Germany proposed the four-day conference after the 2002 World Summit for Sustainable Development in Johannesburg, South Africa, failed to agree on timetables and targets for expanding renewable energy use, despite European pressure.

It gained urgency because of soaring oil prices and attacks on foreign workers in Saudi Arabia. German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder urged delegates Thursday to "address the fact that the global economy's one-sided dependence on oil greatly increases our vulnerability to such terrorism."

The 154-nation Bonn meeting gathered a series of individual commitments. They ranged from China's pledge to draw up a development strategy for renewable energy through a promise of increased funding by the World Bank to a French-German-Afghan initiative to improve energy access in rural Afghanistan. The United States pledged research and development efforts to bring down the cost of solar and wind energy, and said it would expand production tax credits for alternative energies.

"We have sent an important political message to the world," Germany's development minister, Heidemarie Wieczorek-Zeul, said in a closing speech. "We must be clear that, given the huge demand in developing countries, the world will need far more energy than today," she said. "So an enormous expansion of renewable energies is needed."