COP 28 Dubai: How MENA is working towards carbon neutral
Next month, COP 28 will take place in Dubai. The international conference will mark the halfway point from the initial Paris Agreement seven years ago to 2030, the target date for reducing the world’s carbon emissions by 43%.
‘It is interesting to see how oil-dependent economies in the Middle East plan to reduce their carbon emissions,’ says Ron Fox, environment expert at UK-based Noreus Ltd.
The MENA region is one of the world’s most vulnerable to climate change, already facing high temperatures and water scarcity. However, it also has the most growth-potential for renewable energy. MENA receives 22-25% of the world’s solar energy and 75% of the region experiences wind speeds that exceed the minimum threshold for large-scale wind farms.
Several countries have begun to capitalise on this. By 2030, Morocco expects over half of its energy to come from renewable sources, including wind and solar. Earlier this year, Egypt signed a deal with the UAE to build a 10GW wind farm which will cut its emissions by 9%.
In 2021, Saudi Arabia – one of the world’s largest oil producers – opened its first wind farm and just last year unveiled the world’s largest single site solar power facility. By 2030, the country expects to generate 40GW of solar energy and 16GW of wind, marking a tremendous shift in the region’s attitude towards renewable energy.
Both Saudi and the UAE aim to be carbon neutral by 2050.
What about reliance on fossil fuels?
The region is also at the forefront of paving the way for more sustainable fuels with a focus on hydrogen which has been dubbed ‘the fuel of the future’. In certain sectors such as transportation, fertilisers and chemicals, it is a challenging process to move away from the use of fossil fuels and hydrogen presents a viable alternative.
The COP28 President-Designate, Dr Sultan Al Jaber, iterates that:
‘The world must double its hydrogen production by 2030 and the UAE is committed to leading by example as we prepare to host COP28.’
Saudi’s NEOM Green Hydrogen Complex, set to be commissioned in 2026, will be the world’s largest ammonia production facility and will run solely on renewable energy. The ammonia they produce can be transported internationally to ammonia-cracking facilities in order to convert it in to hydrogen or other derivatives to use as fuel.
UAE based firm, Masdar, is currently exploring the creation of a sustainable aviation fuel using this method of solar-to-green hydrogen.
How will this impact Britain?
Both the UAE and Saudi have signed agreements with the UK to facilitate the sharing of knowledge and technical expertise in the field of renewable energy. This has already attracted significant investment in the UK, with the UAE taking a 25% stake in BP’s blue-hydrogen project, H2Teeside.
‘With large scale international cooperations and investments in the renewables sector, we hope to see more British jobs created,’ says Ron Fox of Noreus Ltd. ‘Hydrogen has an important role to play in decarbonisation and if it can be harnessed as an alternative fuel for common transportation, we could see a real change in the green energy landscape.’
