Just 34 countries have targets for renewables

On the day the Montreal talks opened, the International Energy Agency posted on the net a database of which countries of the world have what policies and targets for renewables.

Guess who heads the list? Step (or ski) forward Austria, which wants 78.1% of its electricity to come from renewables by 2010. Following is Sweden, at 60%. Some way lower down is Hungary, at 3.6%.

Only 34 countries have targets for renewables in total, according to the list, although 189 countries signed the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change at the 1992 Earth Summit in Brazil. The Montreal conference brings together 10,000 officials from these states, trailing behind their aircraft GGH emissions.

Among the delegations will be the 156 countries that signed Kyoto, which include every industrialised nation except the US and Australia.

The Global Renewable Energy Policies & Measures Database is a joint effort of the European Commission and the Johannesburg Renewable Energy Coalition (JREC), launched during the Beijing International Renewable Energy Conference in China.

It's a one-stop look-up for the countries which, together, represent almost all the world’s supply of renewable energies and have targets.

And reading it makes you realise just how far there is to go - or how much of a market there is left to grab for the energy companies of tomorrow.

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