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Recently, Saudi Arabia has launched the ‘Saudi Green Initiative’ and the ‘Middle East Green Initiative’ to combat the threat of climate change.
Key Highlights
- This move comes in the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic which has highlighted the need for collective action among members of the international community to effectively address global challenges such as pandemics and climate change.
- Saudi Arabia presided over the G20 Summit for 2020 and one of the main pillars of this presidency was to “safeguard the planet”.
- The Saudi leadership of the summit highlighted how climate change had negatively impacted the planet, people’s lives and their well-being.
- Saudi Arabia currently operates the largest carbon capture and utilisation plant in the world.
- It turns half a million tonnes of CO2 annually into products such as fertilizers and methanol.
- It also operates one of the region’s most advanced CO2-enhanced oil recovery plants.
- It captures and stores 8,00,000 tonnes of CO2 annually and plans are afoot to deploy additional carbon capture, utilisation and storage infrastructure.
- In February 2019, it joined the International Solar Alliance (ISA) during the Crown Prince’s state visit to India.
- The move promoted cooperation in the renewable energy sector.
- Saudi Green Initiative
- It aims to raise the vegetation cover, reduce carbon emissions, combat pollution and land degradation, and preserve marine life.
- Under it, 10 billion trees will be planted in the Kingdom.
- It will reduce carbon emissions by more than 4 per cent of global contributions, through a renewable energy programme that will generate 50 per cent of Saudi’s energy from renewables by 2030 (Vision 2030).
- Middle East Green Initiative
- Under it, Saudi Arabia will work with the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries and regional partners to plant an additional 40 billion trees in the West Asian region to reduce 2.5 per cent of global carbon levels.
- Saudi Arabia has been sharing its expertise and know-how with its neighbouring countries to reduce carbon emissions resulting from hydrocarbon production in the region by 60 per cent and globally by 10 per cent.
- Under it, the annual summit will host leaders from the government, scientists and environmentalists to discuss the details of implementation.
- Vision 2030
- It is a comprehensive road map to improve the quality of life of the citizens of the country and was unveiled in 2016.
- Under it, the nation carried out a comprehensive restructuring of the environmental sector and established the Environmental Special Forces in 2019.
- NEOM and the Line (proposed smart cities under the Vision) has already redefined the idea of sustainable habitats.
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Source: TH
