President Ibrahim Mohamed Solih has decided, upon recommendation from the cabinet, to seek parliamentary approval for Maldives to ratify amendments to the Framework Agreement on the establishment of the International Solar Alliance (ISA). The president made the decision upon deliberations at the cabinet meeting, held this afternoon at the President’s Office, on a paper submitted by the Ministry of Environment.
The amendment to the agreement enables all states which are members of the United Nations (UN) to become members of ISA. Maldives signed the initial Framework Agreement on the establishment of ISA on April 10, 2019 and subsequently ratified the agreement on April 30, 2019.
ISA is a treaty-based international organisation working towards utilising solar energy to meet the energy demands of its member countries by mobilising over USD 1,000 billion into solar power by 2030 and accelerating, developing and deploying over 1,000GW of solar generation capacity. It was launched at the United Nations Climate Change Conference (UNFCC) in Paris, France, on November 30, 2015.
At today’s meeting, the president and the cabinet ministers discussed the new amendment to the ISA framework agreement. Initially, membership was open to solar resource-rich states, which lie fully or partially between the Tropic of Cancer and the Tropic of Capricorn, and are members of the UN.