Saudi Green Initiative Forum powers ahead with actions

The report-packed opening session of the second Saudi Green Initiative Forum on Nov 11 signaled to the world that the Arab nation remained committed more than ever to its own ambitious climate targets – a year since it was unveiled to the world.

With the theme "from ambition to action", Prince Abdulaziz Bin Salman Bin Abdulaziz Al Saud, Saudi Arabia's minister of energy, opened the two-day forum with what he called his "huge, exciting laundry list" that covered investments in renewables, displacements of harmful fuels, energy efficiency programs, new targets and community-wide mobilization.

"It's my duty to show also that every year, we will become cleaner and cleaner as we go.

It's also commensurate with the theme this year. We want to show the theme of the COP is going from ambition to action," said the prince.

"Prepare for that because of what we have discharged in the commitment for both in the Middle East Green Initiative and the Saudi Green Initiative. We can look at everybody in the eye and say we have done it and we shall continue doing it and it's always about the state of mind," he added.

Last year, Saudi Arabia's Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman launched the inaugural SGI Forum in Riyadh, announcing that his country aims to reach net zero carbon emissions by 2060. Initiatives in the energy sector were also designed to reduce carbon emissions by 278 million tons annually by 2030.

The initiatives announced were worth almost $187 billion, which would contribute to developing the green economy, creating quality job opportunities, and providing significant investment opportunities for the private sector in accordance with the Kingdom's Vision 2030.

According to Prince Abdulaziz, they have reduced their liquid fuel consumption and power generation last year, compared to 2019, roughly by 7.5 percent, amounting to a total of 77,000 barrels of reduced liquids.

They have also signed six memorandums of understanding with six governments – the United States, Germany, the United Kingdom, South Korea, Singapore and Greece – to "make sure we work together on hydrogen".

"We're working with even standardizing hydrogen. We don't have to call it green, purple, yellow, pink, blue, or grey. We have to work on standardizing hydrogen and we have to call it clean hydrogen or low-carbon hydrogen," said the minister.

"At the end of the day, we have to agree on standardizing the quality of hydrogen and make sure that it is acceptable for people to buy it," he added.

He also said that there are eight pilot projects of hydrogen-fueled vehicles like buses, trains, transport application and sustainable jet fuel production.

"It's something we're proud of because if we can succeed with that, we can scale it and become the role model…for how hydrogen can help mobility," said the prince.

Next year, the prince said, they will be finalizing plans for developing 10 more renewable projects.

According to him, the development of energy efficiency market has "also helped us to create a new business line, a new industry" and that is ESCO.

The ESCO or Energy Services Company was established to help reduce energy consumption for the public and private sector facilities.

When the company started, said the minister, they only had four companies operating in Saudi Arabia. But today, the licensed companies have mushroomed to 47 and that they are pushing this to mid-sized companies and small companies.