By Schoni Song
In about a week from now, legislators from all across the globe are gathering in Geneva, the “Peace Capital” of Switzerland, for the 138th Assembly of the Inter-Parliamentary Union (IPU). The IPU, which convenes legislators internationally on a fairly regular basis, is an organization consisted of more than 170 national parliaments.
While the institution has been around for almost 130 years, this year’s assembly will—for the first time in its institutional history—talk about a resolution on how to provide clean, affordable and sustainable energy to all, a goal that is recognized widely as a core pillar of the “global sustainable development agenda” among other things.
According to the International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA), a global steward of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 7 indicators, renewable and eco-friendly energy resources could end up helping almost six million families across the world—meaning drastically improved livelihood for almost 30 million individuals. However, even if all of this comes true there is still a very long road ahead. It is also estimated that about 120 million people organize their lives around energy poverty in which there is no access to electrical grid and are instead stuck with sunlight as the sole source of energy.
To address this issue, there is an upcoming resolution titled “Engaging the private sector in implementing SDGs” which concerns renewable energy in particular that was recently put forward by Andries Gryffroy, a legislator from the Flemish Parliament. The Flemish politician is an IPU focal point and spokesperson on issues pertaining to energy for his party, N-VA. Mr Gryffroy is accompanied in his energy bill by his co-legislator, Duong Quoc Anh, who is a member of the Vietnamese parliament. The two parliamentarians will be pushing for this new inter-parliamentary bill in close coordination with the IRENA.
A Flemish spokesperson and raconteur of a historic IPU resolution on renewable energy, Andries Gryffroy of N-VA
As is the case with most international agencies and organizations, IPU holds no binding force with its resolutions and policies when the bills are drafted and adopted by the member parliaments. But because the resolutions are distributed at the United Nations and its subsidiary institutions and partner organizations, there is a lot of room for political influence and eventually creating impact in the domestic legislation of individual member states. This new soon-to-be-implemented renewable energy-centered resolution is faithful to IPU’s hopes of what national parliaments can achieve in solidarity by optimizing their influence and engagement across the SDG 7. Many hope that this will be the basis upon which global access to clean, reliable, affordable and most importantly, sustainable energy might be realized for all.
Mr Gryffroy, who delineated the political and socio-economic significance of this energy grid predicament facing humanity, stated prior to the meeting, “Today, about 1.1 billion people lack access to energy powered by the grid. Unhealthy wood stoves, hazardous kerosene lanterns, loud and environmentally unfriendly gas and diesel generators are being used instead,” and he continued, “These forms of energy are costly and labor intensive, yet, in remote areas, it is not financially viable to develop high voltage distribution networks. Installing small windmills, or solar systems in villages or homes represents a sound alternative to more conventional sources of energy.”
He also highlighted the latent powers of these off-and-mini-grid renewable energy projects that he and his co-legislators are pushing (which include creating small-scale power generators that can convert usage, industrial power from these energy sources) for contributing to the realization and facilitation of SDG 7 in under-developed economies around the world. The recent resolution, according to Gryffroy, underscores and promotes that parliaments focus on facilitating, and better accounting for, the risk management needs of small-scale local project developers. This is aligned with the idea of advocating the installation of effective legal structures, and for incentivizing partnerships across the public and private domains to accelerate the shift toward a more efficient energy architecture.
The Flemish legislator also mentioned that “[a]ccess to finance remains the issue even though such projects represent a relatively small investment.” He added, “Investors are less attracted by those projects because they have limited visibility on the financial risks. The cost of assessing an off-grid project’s viability is also higher than for larger projects.” From his comments, it can be extrapolated that the world needs better reassurances like a clear and longer-term agreement about electricity with more stable prices. These projects may also be better managed only when investors who provide the capital are truly supportive of the agenda at hand and when the government is serious about committing to these projects. Only then can the facilitation of sustainable energy solutions and their projects take off and survive the policy and political challenges in the long run. As a legislator from the Flemish Parliament, Gryffroy epitomizes how parliamentarians can really make a difference in the realm of diplomacy and international politics by actively engaging the various stakeholders—actors who are obviously key to undertaking any legislative work both national and international.
The sustainable energy draft resolution—which is due to be discussed and fiercely debated throughout next week at the IPU conferences—has been submitted for adoption to the IPU Assembly prior to the actual meetings. This represents an enormous and unique opportunity for the IPU and its member parliamentarians. Ultimately, the opportunities are up for grabs and legislators must seize them decisively in order to drive the change they truly envision and desire.
The writer is a program officer in the National Assembly of the Republic of Korea. He can be reached at schoni0124@naver.com or mseap@assembly.go.kr. - Ed. |
