The role of the UN institutional mechanism in ensuring ecological energy

Abstract

The UN occupies a key place in the system of international organizations, coordinating international cooperation on a wide range of issues of international life. Accordingly, it is not surprising that its role is also important in the regulation of ecological energy.
 The ecological energy sector has become one of the relatively new spheres of international law development. It covers the aspects of renewable energy sources, alternative fuels, ecologically safe mechanisms of using fossil fuels that do not cause excessive damage to the environment.
 Since the 1950s, the UN Economic and Social Council was the first to raise the issue of «new energy sources» in its documents, among which renewable sources were also distinguished. It also initiated the first scientific conference on RES.
 Later, the General Assembly and the UN Security Council joined the process, the first of which initiated the annual holding of UN international conferences on renewable energy sources, and annually adopted resolutions to support RES in the world. In the future, by creating auxiliary bodies, they promoted ecological energy within the framework of sustainable development, such as the High-Level Political Forum on Sustainable Development. The UN Security Council mainly considers energy issues in their connection with aspects of peace and security, for example, in the field of energy security, or bodies responsible for violations.
 Specialized institutions of the UN system also take an active part in the implementation of the concept of ecologically oriented energy. Suffice it to mention that the Kyoto Protocol of 1997 authorized the International Maritime Organization (IMO) and ICAO to establish sectoral requirements for countering greenhouse gas emissions in accordance with their competence. For ten years, UNESCO acted as the head of the World Solar Program, contributing to the implementation of Kharar Declaration on Solar Energy and Sustainable Development of 1996.
 FAO, as an organization dealing with issues of food and agriculture, has focused its attention on such a segment of renewable energy as the implementation of bioenergy programs. UNIDO focused on energy issues as the basis of sustainable industrial development. It prioritizes three aspects of energy: rural energy for production purposes with an emphasis on the use of RES, energy efficiency and climate change.
 Accordingly, within the framework of the UN, a rather extensive system of bodies and organizations has been created, which are engaged in the implementation of the tasks of ecologically oriented energy. Unfortunately, all these bodies do not have the corresponding specialized competences; they solve these tasks only within the limits of their own competence. Also, currently there is no single body for coordinating the tasks of EOE within the framework of the UN system.