Come and join us

• Last Updated: June 27. 2009 8:44PM UAE / June 27. 2009 4:44PM GMT

The International Renewable Energy Agency (Irena) convenes tomorrow to select a director-general and a location for its headquarters. There are high hopes that the HQ will be in Masdar, the UAE’s unique and revolutionary eco-city. But when Irena’s 114 member nations vote in a secret ballot for the world’s new green capital, one major country will be absent because it has so far declined to associate itself with the agency. That country is the United States.

The House of Representatives has just passed the American Clean Energy and Security Act, and Barack Obama is committed to creating a new energy-efficient economy. But as the US has discovered in other areas, and as the president himself has candidly admitted, acting unilaterally is often in the best interests of neither America nor of the world. Irena’s mission aligns closely with Mr Obama’s ambitious plan to decrease US dependence on oil and to limit the release of pollutants. His plan will create “green” jobs and make the US energy economy more efficient. But joining international efforts can also be be essential in changing the way in which the world produces and consumes energy, and ultimately to saving the planet for mankind.