ABSTRACT
The existing institutional network of international energy governance is highly fragmented, resulting in a myriad of international organizations, none of which fulfil the role of being a truly global or universal “arena” where different actors can cooperate and facilitate their relations. Many of the existing organizations represent the interests either of established players or else of rising powers. Cases such as the club-like approach of the International Energy Agency (IEA) have demonstrated the problems of overarching actors’ coalitions and incremental institutional change. At the same time, renewable energy has remained a “blind spot” on the international level for decades, with no international organization solely devoted to questions of decarbonization, transition paths, or technology transfer. Since its foundation on 26 January 2009, IRENA, the International Renewable Energy Agency, has sought to fill this vacuum, thereby creating a new (and maybe more Southern-led) political arena for governing renewable energy issues on a global scale. Thus IRENA as an institution interconnects the abovementioned challenges: the need to create an arena where both established and emerging energy powers can cooperate, and at the same time the need to create a space that represents a governance arena for all issues concerning renewable energies. Initiated by EU Member States, notably Germany and Spain, IRENA has attracted the membership of China, India, and South Africa, with Brazil currently remaining an independent observer, suggesting that it could function as a new international platform that brings together both European and BICS actors driven by the motivation to intensify cooperation on renewable energies and to foster energy transition. Given that IRENA creates some institutional concurrence and questions established hierarchies within the sphere of international energy governance, this chapter seeks to address such changes to the sphere, with the aim of exploring IRENA’s institutional role, cooperation opportunities for the EU and the BICS, and governance innovations for a global energy transition. The analysis has been guided by the following research questions:
Institutional changes: How does IRENA change or challenge the fragmented institutional network?
Governance innovations: How does IRENA govern renewable energies on a global/local scale? How are the EU and Emerging Powers engaged in this enterprise?
