The Special Report on Renewable Energy Sources and Climate Change Mitigation (SRREN) of the IPCC Working Group III provides an assessment and thorough analysis of renewable energy technologies and their current and potential role in the mitigation of greenhouse gas emissions. The results presented here are based on an extensive assessment of scientific literature, including specifics of individual studies, but also an aggregate across studies analyzed for broader conclusions. The report combines information on technology specific studies with results of large-scale integrated models, and provides policy-relevant (but not policy-prescriptive) information to decision makers on the characteristics and technical potentials of different resources; the historical development of the technologies; the challenges of their integration and social and environmental impacts of their use; as well as a comparison in levelized cost of energy for commercially available renewable technologies with recent non-renewable energy costs. Further, the role of renewable energy sources in pursuing GHG concentration stabilization levels discussed in this report and the presentation and analysis of the policies available to assist the development and deployment of renewable energy technologies in climate change mitigation and/or other goals answer important questions detailed in the original scoping of the report.

The process

This report has been prepared in accordance with the rules and procedures established by the IPCC and used for previous assessment reports. After a scoping meeting in Lübeck, Germany from the 20th to the 25th of January, 2008, the outline of the report was approved at the 28th IPCC Plenary held in Budapest, Hungary on the 9th and 10th of April, 2008.