It may sound a lot like Captain Planet and his team of eco-conscious warriors, but the International Agency for Renewable Energies (IRENA) is far from fiction. After being founded only two days ago on January 26 in Bonn, Germany, 75 countries have already signed up.

The United States, not wanting to ruin its Kyoto streak of non-participation, has not yet joined the intergovernmental organization for renewable energy, but an invitation has been sent to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. Hopefully we'll get on board. The 75 founding nations of IRENA include Germany, Spain, France, Denmark, Norway, and Sweden, as well as Turkey, the United Arab Emirates, Egypt, India, Nigeria, Kenya, Chile, and Colombia, among others.

IRENA was formed based on a proposal presented in 1990 by German renewable energy leader Hermann Scheer, who said at the council, “From this day forward, the world’s nations will have a mechanism for working together on the adoption of renewable energies. The debate about whether to adopt renewable energies is over...The question is now how quickly we can assure a sustainable future.”

IRENA aims to lead the way to a cleaner future by promoting a rapid transition towards the widespread global use of renewable energy. It will do this by providing access to reliable data on potential forms of renewable energy, information about best practices and effective financial mechanisms.

The agency will also develop and promote renewable energy policies on the local, regional and national level, in addition to encouraging organizations and networks already engaged in renewable energy to complement and pool their resources. I like that it is being practical about the costs of such practices, and will consider specific environmental, economic and socio-cultural conditions, and will involve stakeholders from the energy industry, academia, institutions and civil society.

It differs from the World Council on Renewable Energy, which is designed to promote renewable energy policies, in that IRENA is a political institution that is intended to act as a counterbalance to the International Atomic Energy Agency and the International Energy Agency.

This is exactly what the world needs to push renewable energy into a practice that is commonplace. The more countries that join, the better our future looks.