Sponsored by the Renewable Energy and Energy Efficiency Partnership (REEEP),
the database is called the International Sustainable Energy Assessment (ISEA)
and contains in-force energy treaties from all 192 countries in the world
dealing with some 45 energy-related subject areas.
Morgan Bazilian, REEEP Programme Board Chair, said that international
agreements have the ability to profoundly impact renewable energy and
energy efficiency activities.
"These instruments play a critical role by supporting markets,
facilitating technology transfer and capacity-building, and reducing
financial barriers," Bazilian said. "The ISEA project gives us an
essential analytical baseline for understanding what's happening in the
world of international agreements relative to energy technologies -- and
enables us to take the next step of figuring out the best ways of using
these instruments to facilitate the growth of renewable energy and energy
efficiency activities."
A considerable amount of work went into building the ISEA database. For
more than a year, a team of EESI researchers identified and analyzed tens
of thousands of international agreements. The researchers first spent
months pulling together international agreements from around the world --
focusing particularly on China, India, the European Union and the United
States.
The team then reviewed every single agreement, determining which of them
were relevant enough to include in the database. For those agreements
included, the researchers carefully analyzed each agreement, coding them
by subject areas, obligations, financial mechanisms, implementing methods,
institutional arrangements and other relevant criteria.
At present, there are two versions of the ISEA database: an internal,
password-restricted version that contains all 1,700 agreements -- of which
the United States is party to approximately 1,100 -- and a free public
version that contains about 500 agreements.
Project Manager Kevin Doran explained that the internal database is a kind
of holding-bin. After the team has thoroughly researched and analyzed a
treaty, it will then pass it into the public database where anyone can
access the information.
"We plan to have all 1,700 agreements available on the public site in the
next six months," Doran said. "But in the meantime, we're happy to provide
information on the treaties in the internal database on request."
According to Doran, the public database currently has 94 international
agreements dealing with renewable energy technologies -- with 40% of these
agreements addressing solar energy. The remainder of the renewable energy
category is made up of agreements dealing with hydropower (23%), wind
(11%), bioenergy (11%), and geothermal (11%).
Commenting on the launch of the ISEA database, U.S. Senator Richard Lugar
(R), Chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, remarked: "This
is an invaluable database. It will be a useful tool in our diplomatic
efforts to chart a sustainable energy future with our international
partners."
Senator Lugar recently introduced the Energy Diplomacy and Security Act (EDSA)
in the U.S. Senate, which has garnered bipartisan sponsorship from 11 U.S.
senators. The EDSA seeks to use new and existing international agreements
to enhance energy security and promote the use of sustainable energy.