- World
- Jan 08
US to withdraw from India-led International Solar Alliance
• President Donald Trump announced the withdrawal of the United States from 66 international organisations on January 7.
• The move is part of the Trump administration’s review of “wasteful, ineffective, and harmful international organisations”.
• Review of additional international organisations pursuant to Executive Order 14199 remains ongoing.
• The Executive Order directed the Secretary of State, in consultation with the United States Representative to the United Nations, to conduct a review of all international intergovernmental organisations of which the US is a member and provides any type of funding or other support, and all conventions and treaties to which the US is a party, to determine which organisations, conventions, and treaties are contrary to the interests of the US.
• The Trump administration has found these institutions to be “redundant in their scope, mismanaged, unnecessary, wasteful, poorly run, captured by the interests of actors advancing their own agendas contrary to our own, or a threat to our nation’s sovereignty, freedoms, and general prosperity”.
• It is of the view that the days of billions of dollars in taxpayer money flowing to foreign interests at the expense of our people are over.
International Solar Alliance
• International Solar Alliance (ISA) is an inter-governmental treaty-based organisation with a global mandate to catalyse solar growth by helping to reduce the cost of financing and technology.
• The ISA was jointly launched by Prime Minister Narendra Modi and French President Francois Hollande on November 30, 2015, in Paris on the sidelines of the 21st Conference of Parties (COP21) to the UNFCCC.
• The ISA Framework Agreement was opened for signature on November 15, 2016, in Marrakech, Morocco, on the sidelines of COP22.
• With the signing and ratification of the ISA Framework Agreement by 15 countries on December 6, 2017, ISA became the first international inter-governmental organisation to be headquartered in India.
• On March 11, 2018, Modi and French President Emmanuel Macron co-hosted the founding conference of the International Solar Alliance (ISA).
• Membership is open to those solar resource-rich states that lie fully or partially between the Tropic of Cancer and the Tropic of Capricorn, and are members of the UN.
• ISA was conceived as a coalition of solar-resource-rich countries (which lie either completely or partly between the Tropic of Cancer and the Tropic of Capricorn) to address their special energy needs.
• The vision and mission of the ISA is to provide a dedicated platform for cooperation among solar-resource-rich countries, through which the global community, including governments, bilateral and multilateral organisations, corporates, industry, and other stakeholders, can contribute to help achieve the common goal of increasing the use and quality of solar energy in meeting energy needs of prospective ISA member countries in a safe, convenient, affordable, equitable and sustainable manner.
• At present, 126 countries are signatories to the ISA Framework Agreement, of which 112 countries have submitted the necessary instruments of ratification to become full members of the ISA.