It was barely reported in Australia, but via this clean energy blog, I discovered yesterday that Australia has decided not to join the newly minted International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA), the renewable energy equivalent of the IEA. According to this report, the US, UK, Japan and China are also staying out at the moment.
But 75 countries have already joined, so Australia's position does seem a little strange, given this Government's commitment to tackling climate change. Not that membership of committees should be the sole test for the government's fealty to its climate change goals, since such organisations can in some circumstances be irrelevant to real change, or even counterproductive.
Nevertheless, it was, on its face, an odd look, so I called the Department of Climate Change for an explanation. I'll let you know when they get back to me.
