At the World Summit for Sustainable Development (WSSD) in September 2002 in Johannesburg, German Chancellor Gerhard Schr�der invited the international community to an international conference for renewable energies. The renewables 2004 conference was intended to lend further impetus to the dynamic process launched in Johannesburg for the global development of renewable energy, as expressed in the Action Programme. The conference also took up the initiative of the like-minded states (the Johannesburg Renewable Energy Coalition) as articulated in their joint declaration, "The Way Forward on Renewable Energy". This entails further substantive development of the process started by this declaration, in order to forge a worldwide coalition for speeding up development of renewable energy.

In the Johannesburg Plan of Implementation (sections 9, 20), the signatory states pledge to take action to improve sustainable access to reliable and affordable energy services as an important contribution to attaining United Nations Millennium Development Goals. Achieving a significant increase in the proportion of renewable energy is viewed as imperative (sections 9a, 20e). Following the World Summit, German Federal Minister for Economic Cooperation and Development Heidemarie Wieczorek-Zeul stressed that "the global community had for the first time declared it urgently necessary to develop these forms of energy".

The Johannesburg Plan of Implementation also calls on governments, international organisations, and other stakeholders to implement the recommendations on "Energy for Sustainable Development" of the ninth session of the Commission on Sustainable Development (CSD 9). The dissemination of alternative energy technologies, especially for renewable energy and energy efficiency, is assigned a prominent role (section 20 c, d, e, g, j, k, n). The joint declaration of the Johannesburg Renewable Energy Coalition supported Chancellor Schr�der, who had just issued his invitation to an international conference on renewable energy in Germany.

At the first meeting of the International Steering Committee in June, 2003, German Federal Environment Minister J�rgen Trittin made clear: "I�m convinced, the development of renewable energies is a win-win strategy for both industrial and developing countries. Renewables bring together climate protection, poverty reduction, technology development and the securing of jobs. And the setting of targets is an important prerequisite to secure stable framework conditions for private-sector investments in renewable energies."