Short answers, pulled from the story.
IRENA was founded on the 26th of January 2009, when 75 countries signed its statute at the Founding Conference in Bonn, Germany. The statute entered into force on the 8th of July 2010, thirty days after the 25th country deposited its instrument of ratification.
IRENA is headquartered in Masdar City, Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates. The agency also maintains an innovation and technology center in Bonn, Germany, and a liaison office in Vienna, Austria.
Francesco La Camera, an Italian national, is the current Director-General of IRENA. He was appointed during IRENA's Ninth Assembly and assumed office on the 4th of April 2019, succeeding Adnan Z. Amin, a Kenyan national who served two full terms as the agency's first Director-General.
Global renewable power capacity additions in 2024 reached 582 gigawatts, a 19.8% increase over 2023 and the highest annual expansion since records began in 2000. Solar photovoltaics led with 452.1 GW, and the total global installed renewable capacity reached 4.44 terawatts by the end of 2024.
IRENA advocates tripling renewable energy utilization to reach a total installed capacity of 11.2 terawatts by 2030. This would require adding an average of 1.04 terawatts per year and is projected to cut carbon dioxide emissions by 43 percent by 2030 and 60 percent by 2035.
The International Day of Clean Energy falls on the 26th of January, a date chosen to coincide with the anniversary of IRENA's founding in 2009. The United Nations General Assembly established the observance on the 25th of August 2023 through resolution A/77/327.