Middle Eastern Countries Are Embracing Renewable Energy While Continuing To Export Oil

There is still much work to be done, but the goal of the fund is to help developing nations that are more susceptible to climate change's negative effects recover from disasters like droughts, floods, and rising seas. Despite the fact that the negotiated language acknowledged, the need for financial support from a number of sources, no decisions have been taken regarding who should pay into the fund, where this money will come from, or which countries will benefit. At the negotiation table, this has been one of the most controversial issues.

UN Climate Change released a report this week stating that 26 countries have revised their climate targets to reflect commitments made at COP26 in Glasgow, UK, in 2017. Egypt has committed to continue reducing greenhouse-gas emissions from the electricity, transportation, and oil and gas sectors, however this only compares to previously anticipated levels and is subject on securing foreign financial help. The United Arab Emirates has increased its prior pledge to reduce emissions by 23.5% by reducing emissions by 31% by 2030.

According to the UN research, countries' pledges over the previous year will result in lower anticipated increases in emissions beyond 2010 levels by 2030 (10.6% compared to 13.7% in a comparable analysis done last year). But they fall far short of what is required to keep global warming below 1.5 °C by the century's conclusion. The Egyptian foreign minister and COP27 president, Sameh Shoukry, has called the findings worrisome and said they require "a radical reaction at COP27."

According to Carlos Duarte, a marine scientist at the King Abdullah University of Science and Technology in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, the next two COP meetings will be a "important moment" for the Middle East. This is a major shift from previous practise. Dr. Michael Oppenheimer, a geoscientist and climate-policy expert at Princeton University in New Jersey, claims that Saudi Arabia continuously prevented action on climate change in the 1990s, despite efforts to halt such action by other oil-rich nations, notably the United States. Ben Santer, an atmospheric scientist at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in Livermore, California, and one of the lead authors of the second IPCC assessment report in 1995, which confirmed that human activities were warming the planet, claims that representatives from Saudi Arabia on the IPCC doubted the scientific consensus on global warming.

 In contrast, the area has embraced renewable technologies and environmental concerns during the past decade. "not fighting the fact of the science," Oppenheimer said of Saudi Arabia and other large oil-producing countries today. According to Mia Moisio, a researcher in climate policy at the New Climate Institute think tank in Berlin, this shift is about diversifying the economies of oil-dependent states in anticipation of a future drop in demand, as well as using renewables to provide for growing domestic populations while saving fossil fuels for export. She also notes that climate change vulnerability is a factor. This region is seeing these unprecedented heat waves. This has also served as a wake-up call, I'm sure.

Masdar, Abu Dhabi's centrepiece project to construct a sustainable city, was opened in 2015, establishing the United Arab Emirates as a leader in environmental protection. Managing Director of Abu Dhabi's Environmental Regulator Razan Al Mubarak was chosen president of the prominent International Union for Conservation of Nature in Gland, Switzerland in September. The United Arab Emirates (UAE) made history in October when it pledged to become the first Arab country to achieve zero domestic emissions by the year 2050.

Other Middle Eastern countries' efforts have also increased. The world's largest oil exporter, Saudi Arabia, and its neighbour, Bahrain, have both committed to reaching net-zero emissions by the year 2060. Gas-rich Meanwhile, Qatar has established the world's first ministry dedicated to combating climate change and has pledged to reduce its emissions by 25% by 2030. Israel and Turkey have both committed to going completely off the grid by the middle of the next century.

More generally, Saudi Arabia led the Middle East Green Initiative last year, which has established an aim of reducing carbon emissions from the region's oil and gas industry by 60%, with no specified timeframe. One of the world's major producers of methane, this sector is also one of its largest consumers. "For the first time, we're seeing a number of nations that used to be, or are still substantially dependent on their hydrocarbon industry, come out with these net-zero commitments," says Moisio, who also works on the Climate Action Tracker, which ranks countries according to their climate pledges and activities.

Growth of Renewable Energy Sources

Not much is known about the governments' plans to reach these climate targets. However, the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia are supporting their goals with large expenditures, such as the development or expansion of carbon-neutral towns. By 2050, the UAE plans to have invested 600 billion dirhams (about US$163 billion) on renewable and sustainable energy. The Saudi government projects that its Saudi Green Initiative will attract investments totaling 700 billion Saudi Arabian riyal (about US$186 billion).

Bloomberg New Energy Finance, a New York City-based energy consulting firm, reports that renewable energy investment in the Middle East will have increased from $960 million in 2011 to $6.9 billion in 2021, a sevenfold increase. In 2018, Saudi Arabia invested around $1.5 billion in solar energy, while the United Arab Emirates invested nearly $9 billion in the sector between 2017 and 2018. Chemical engineer and energy systems researcher Mercedes Maroto-Valer from Edinburgh-based Heriot-Watt University, which also has a campus in Dubai, observes, "There is rather significant change we're seeing in the region in terms of investment." However, as of 2020, IRENA data shows that less than 4% of the region's electricity is produced from renewable sources, compared to a global average of 28%.

 According to Maroto-Valer, Champion and Director UK Industrial Decarbonisation Research and Innovation Centre (IDRIC), the countries in the region plan to rely heavily on solar, wind, and hydropower in the near future to achieve their climate goals. According to Awaidha Al Marar, head of the Abu Dhabi Department of Energy, renewable technologies and nuclear power accounted for 13% of Abu Dhabi's energy mix in 2021 and are predicted to reach more than 54% by 2025. One of the largest solar plants in the world is located in Egypt, with a capacity of 1,650 megawatts; before the end of the year, Qatar expects to open a solar site with a capacity of 800 megawatts.

 The Gulf states have an inherent advantage due to their high amounts of solar radiation, and the price of renewable energy in the Middle East has decreased to as little as 1 US cent per kilowatt hour (compared with a world average in 2021 of around 5 cents for solar projects and 3 cents for onshore wind). According to Francesco La Camera, director-general of IRENA, this is a "tremendously competitive pricing."

 Green hydrogen, a fuel produced by splitting water into hydrogen and oxygen using renewable electricity, relies on this low cost to advance in Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates. A lofty goal for Saudi Arabia is to become the world's leading producer and exporter of hydrogen by 2030. It intends to do so by means of a plant currently under development in a futuristic zero-carbon metropolis dubbed Neom, which is being created in the country's northwest.

Long-term, Middle Eastern countries are interested in carbon capture strategies, either via hydrocarbon plants or indirectly by increasing atmospheric carbon sinks. For instance, the Middle East Green Initiative plans to combat desertification and repair an area equal to 200 million hectares of damaged land by planting 50 billion trees, which is said to be the world's largest afforestation project. According to Duarte, habitat loss is responsible for about 38% of global carbon output in the past. He estimates that reversing that would be responsible for around a third of climate solutions.

Emissions will be offset in Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates through carbon capture and storage, as well as through the production of carbon-based goods like plastics and cosmetics. However, not everyone agrees that this strategy works. According to its 2050 energy plan, the UAE plans to generate 12% of its electricity from 'clean coal,' whose emissions are contained. This is a "red signal" in Moisio's eyes because the technology is costly and has not been proven commercially feasible. She argues that it should be used primarily in cement and steel, two industries that will have a hard time reducing carbon emissions.

The Oil Age Will Never End

The fact that Middle Eastern nations are also maintaining their financial commitments to oil and gas development is the proverbial elephant in the room. As is the case with the vast majority of countries, net-zero goals do not factor in emissions that are exported. The oil dependence of Middle Eastern economy has decreased significantly during the past decade. In 2010, the Middle East and North Africa region's GDP was 22.1% of the world's total due to oil income (measured by oil rents). By the year 2020, this figure had decreased to 11.7 percent of GDP, which was still much higher than the global average of less than 1 percent.

However, the escalation in energy costs may also be traced back to Russia's invasion of Ukraine and the accompanying sanctions put on Russia by Western countries. Aramco, the state oil company of Saudi Arabia, reported record earnings of US$48.4 billion in the second quarter of 2022, up 90% from the second quarter of 2021. The Western nations have been pressuring OPEC members to increase oil supply to offset the loss of Russian oil output. Although OPEC producers had previously agreed to a modest increase, that decision was controversially reversed at a meeting between OPEC members and a few affiliated states (including Russia) at the beginning of October. Tensions between Saudi Arabia and the United States have escalated as a result of the rise in oil prices brought on the supply limitations imposed in advance of COP27.

According to reports, Saudi Arabia was one of the countries at COP26 in Glasgow that watered down a recommendation on phasing out fossil-fuel subsidies. According to Moisio, "there is still push back," and this is "understandable" given the continued reliance of their economy on hydrocarbons. But publicly there has been a clear shift and they don’t want to be viewed as “climate-change laggards”, she says.

She goes on to say that it would send "an important signal," if efforts to find new fossil fuels were halted. The International Energy Agency’s pathway towards net zero by 2050 — which will need to be followed if global warming is to be confined to 1.5 ºC — involves no new investment in oil and gas extraction.

However, according to Maroto-Valer, countries who do not have the infrastructure to produce renewable sources of energy will still need fossil fuels for some time, and a fair transition process entails not penalising nations that export to such countries. She goes on to say, "I think we should be seeking to minimise [oil] exports," but that the onus shouldn't fall only on the country that produces the oil.

After reviewing Saudi Arabia's environmental policy, Duarte concludes that it was inadequate. There's a lot of ground to make up on other countries, but "growth is pretty steady" and "the plan is extremely smart," he says. Moreover, he says, billions of dollars have recently been invested in projects to address other environmental concerns in the region, such as the conservation of coral reefs. The world needs to see what I see, and I pray they do so soon.