Seventh International Forum on Energy for Sustainable Development

The Seventh International Forum on Energy for Sustainable Development will be held in Baku, Azerbaijan on 18-21 October 2016. It is jointly organized by the Government of Azerbaijan, the United Nations Regional Commissions, the International Energy Agency (IEA), the International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA), the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), the United Nations Industrial Development Organization (UNIDO), the Copenhagen Centre on Energy Efficiency (C2E2), and the Renewable Energy Policy Network for the 21st Century (REN21). The Seventh Forum will combine a high-level session with plenary sessions, parallel workshops and site visits over four days. The Forum will assemble up to 300 international energy experts, government officials, and representatives from the business community, financial sector, academia and civil society to share perspectives on how the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and other aspirational pledges such as the Paris Agreement on climate change can be implemented. It will also include an International Renewable Energy Conference and the annual sessions of the UNECE Group of Experts on Renewable Energy and Group of Experts on Energy Efficiency for the first time. 
The objective of the Seventh International Forum on Energy for Sustainable Development is to explore how to deliver on the national commitments, such as the Intended Nationally Determined Contributions (INDCs, which would then become NDCs) in support of achieving the climate change mitigation and adaptation goals outlined in the Paris Agreement, including investment in renewable energy as a means of reducing the carbon intensity of the energy sector. The potential solutions to be agreed at an Energy Ministerial at the outset of the Eighth International Forum on Energy for Sustainable Development in Astana, Kazakhstan, on 11 June 2017, as a major stepping stone in the history of this international fora process, will also be discussed in the frame of Baku Forum.