London (Platts)--11Apr2008

The United Nations' Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change voted late
Thursday to draft a special report on the role that renewable energy resources
can play in mitigating climate change.

The IPCC, meeting in Budapest, Hungary, issued a summary document on its
plans for preparing the report, which is scheduled for publication in 2010.
Though the panel examined renewable energy and energy efficiency in its
fourth assessment report published last year, members of the Geneva,
Switzerland-based IPCC decided that renewable energy merited in-depth coverage
because of its importance in reducing carbon emissions.

"A special report on renewable energy sources and climate change
mitigation would address the information needs of policy makers, [the] private
sector and civil society in a comprehensive way and would provide valuable
information for further IPPC publications," according to the summary document.
"Ideally it should be finalized in time to allow integration of its
findings into the next comprehensive IPCC assessment of mitigation of climate
change."

The report, budgeted at SFr1.048 million (Eur659,462; $1.042 million),
will look at knocking down barriers to using renewables and integrating
renewable energy into energy systems as well as the potential contributions of
different types of renewable resources such as wind, solar energy, geothermal,
hydropower and ocean energy.

Sven Teske, renewable energy expert at Greenpeace, noted that the IPCC
and other international organizations had previously covered renewables but
predicted that the panel's special report would have a much greater impact
than other analyses.

"The issue of renewables was touched on in one [IPCC] report," he said.
"But this will be a comprehensive report. There's never been a UN
scenario [on renewables] before. We think it'll have a bigger influence than
other reports. It'll bring the energy debate a big step forward."