Minister Of Climate Change And Environment Highlights UAE Climate Action To Permanent Representatives To UN
On the sidelines of the 10th Session of the International Renewable Agency (IRENA) Assembly, His Excellency Dr Thani bin Ahmed Al Zeyoudi, Minister of Climate Change and Environment, provided an overview of the UAE’s approach to tackling climate and sustainability challenges at home and abroad to a group of permanent representatives to the UN.
His Excellency Dr Al Zeyoudi outlined the UAE Vision 2021 that has sustainability at its core, the National Climate Change Adaptation Program that assesses the current and projected impacts of climate change on key sectors in the UAE, and the draft law on climate change that will enter into force later in 2020 as the first law of its kind in the Middle East.
Demonstrating the UAE’s commitment to driving renewables deployment, His Excellency Dr Al Zeyoudi said: “We set ambitious clean energy targets – 27 percent by 2021 and 50 percent by 2050. We deployed large-scale renewable energy projects to meet those targets, including the 5 GW Sheikh Mohammed Bin Rashid Al Maktoum Solar Park, set to be fully operational in 2030. The latest addition to the list is the 1 GW Noor Abu Dhabi – the world’s largest single-site solar power plant comprising 3.2 million solar panels that started commercial operations in June 2019. Just days later, we announced a new 2 GW solar project that is already in the works.”
He added: “As a result, we increased our renewable energy capacity from a mere 10 MW in 2009 to 1,800 MW today, with an additional 6,500 MW either under development or planned until 2030.”
The Minister highlighted the projects carried out to date within the framework of the US$50 million UAE-Pacific Partnership Fund that seeks to address the development challenge posed by the Pacific region’s energy costs that are among the highest in the world. He also introduced the US$50 million UAE-Caribbean Renewable Energy Fund and its mission to deploy renewable energy projects in 16 Caribbean countries. In 2019, the Fund inaugurated three projects to install 1.45 MW of solar photovoltaic power capacity in the Bahamas, Barbados, and Saint Vincent and the Grenadines.
In addition, His Excellency Dr Al Zeyoudi witnessed the signing of a memorandum of understanding on enhancing collaboration in the renewables sector between IRENA and the Department of Energy – Abu Dhabi.
He also met with Philippe Henry, Minister of Climate, Mobility, Infrastructure and Energy of the Wallonia Region in Belgium, and discussed water science with two leading personalities in the field – Dr Gerald Pollack, Professor of Bioengineering at the University of Washington, and Dr Luc Montagnier, Nobel Prize winner in Physiology or Medicine.
