"Before I came to Brussels I was told it is very difficult. You are going to the heart of Europe, your contenders are Austria, Germany and Denmark and you want to lobby for more support for the UAE," Reem al-Hashemi, UAE minister of state said here tonight.
Canvassing support for the Emirates’ bid, Al-Hashemi said she found in her discussions in Brussels that the most "important objective for us is to give as much information for decision makers".
Speaking in impeccable English, the Emirate minister made an impressive speech at a reception hosted by UAE ambassador to the EU, Mohammed Salem Al-Suweidi, explaining the reasons for her country’s quest to host IRENA headquarters in Masdar city.
Located in Abu Dhabi it represents the world’s first carbon neutral, zero waste city, she noted.
"First, our strategic geographic position makes the UAE the ideal location for an international agency," she told the large gathering of Arab and European diplomats and officials, businessmen, energy experts and others.
"Second, the fight against climate change is a global responsibility. Choosing Abu Dhabi as the home for IRENA would truly be a landmark decision as it would be the first time such an organisation was placed in the Middle East".
"Third, as part of our commitment to sustainability, the UAE leadership has placed IRENA as one of its highest priorities," said the UAE minister.
One her part, Kuwait’s ambassador to Brussels, Nabeela al-Mulla, who was present at the reception, told KUNA that all GCC countries are supporting UAE.
"Committed to GCC resolutions, we have this principled position that our resolutions have to be implemented. One of these resolutions that we took recently is to support the UAE in its quest to establish this centre there," noted al-Mulla.
IRENA was officially established in Bonn, Germany, on 26 January 2009. Up-to-date, 93 States have signed the Statute of the Agency, amongst them 35 African, 29 European, 20 Asian and 9 Latin-American countries.
IRENA aspires to become the main driving force for promoting a rapid transition towards the widespread and sustainable use of renewable energy on a global scale.
Decision on the headquarters will be made in a meeting in in Sharm el-sheikh, Egypt, on 29 June.
"We are committed to investing and nurturing knowledge around renewable energy," said al-Hashemi, noting that the Masdar institute of Science and Technology is the world’s first post graduate, research institution entirely focuses on renewable energy.
"We recognize that for bold goals such as our own, and those of the EU to materialize, action from both the government and the private sectors is critical," concluded the minister.