The United Arab Emirates, the oil-rich Gulf nation that is hosting the next UN climate summit, is “running towards” a renewable energy future, the president of the summit has said.
“The UAE has always made progress by getting ahead of the future,” said Sultan Al Jaber, who will oversee the Cop28 conference beginning this November, at an international meeting in Dubai on Tuesday. “We believe that gamechanging solutions can be achieved if the collective political will is there. It certainly is from the UAE. We in the UAE are not shying away from the energy transition. We are running towards it.”
Al Jaber is also chief executive of the UAE’s national oil company, Adnoc, which has brought him under heavy fire from climate activists. Many prominent climate campaigning groups, and politicians including several US lawmakers, have called for him to step down from the oil company role.
But Al Jaber told the World Government Summit, an annual meeting organised by the UAE in Dubai, that the country was working to “transform entire industrial systems that still run on the energies of the first Industrial Revolution”.
He set out the case for the UAE’s presidency of the Cop28 summit, the fortnight-long meeting of heads of state and government that will begin on 30 November. At the conference, governments will be expected to report on how much progress they have made on cutting greenhouse gas emissions in line with the commitments of the 2015 Paris agreement on climate change.
This “global stocktake” is expected to show that far too little has been done to limit global heating to 1.5C above pre-industrial levels, the key aspiration set at Paris, and which scientists say is necessary to avoid the worst ravages of climate breakdown.
Al Jaber said on Tuesday: “We don’t need to wait for the stocktake to find out what it will say. We already know that we are way off track. The world is playing catch-up when it comes to holding global temperatures down to 1.5C.”
skip past newsletter promotion
Sign up to Down to Earth
Free weekly newsletter
The planet’s most important stories. Get all the week’s environment news – the good, the bad and the essential
2023-02-14 11:08:50
Original from www.theguardian.com
The United Arab Emirates (UAE) has earned a reputation as an energy hub around the world due to its extensive oil and gas reserves. Recently, the UAE has made strides towards a renewable power future, demonstrating the country’s commitment to sustainability. In December 2019, the Minister of Energy and Industry of the United Arab Emirates, Suhail Mazrouei, was appointed President of COP28, the 28th Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). As such, Mazrouei is the first Arab leader to lead the world’s major conference on climate change.
Moreover, the UAE is moving from a reliance on diminishing natural resources to an increased reliance on renewable and alternative sources of energy. The country has set ambitious yet achievable goals for itself, including a renewable energy target of 44 percent by the year 2050. In addition, the UAE plans to reduce its carbon dioxide emissions by 70 percent by the same year.
The UAE is committed to its renewable energy agenda, investing billions of dollars in clean energy projects each year. In October 2020, the country announced a $20 billion investment in green initiatives, making it one of the largest single investments in the nation’s history. This fund is expected to be divided between initiatives like clean energy, energy efficiency, water resources, clean technologies and sustainable infrastructures. In addition, the country has already made progress in switch to renewable energy. For instance, Masdar, a UAE-based renewables company, recently opened a solar power plant in Dubai that can generate up to 1,177 megawatts of electricity.
The UAE’s commitment to sustainability has been embraced by leaders from across the world, who have lauded its engagement in the fight against climate change and its efforts to reduce carbon emissions. As a result, the UAE is well-positioned to make the most of the renewable energy shift and become a regional leader in sustainability. With Suhail Mazrouei as the President of COP28 and the UAE’s increasing focus on renewable energy, the country has demonstrated its commitment to reducing its carbon footprint and creating a sustainable power future.