Global energy crisis is a ‘management’ issue, says Crescent Enterprises CEO Badr Jafar

Special Global energy crisis is a ‘management’ issue, says Crescent Enterprises CEO Badr Jafar
Badr Jafar, the CEO of Crescent Enterprises, at the WEF discussion of philanthropy. (WEF/Valeriano Di Domenico)
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Updated 21 January 2023

Global energy crisis is a ‘management’ issue, says Crescent Enterprises CEO Badr Jafar

Global energy crisis is a ‘management’ issue, says Crescent Enterprises CEO Badr Jafar
  • Problem is the lack of conducive policies to make sure energy reaches necessary markets, says UAE-based CEO
  • Governments need to learn to solve supply issues with long-term conducive policies, Badr Jafar tells Arab News 

DAVOS: As the world grapples with its most serious energy crisis since the Second World War due to the war between Russia and Ukraine, Badr Jafar, chief executive officer of UAE-based Crescent Enterprises, told Arab News he believes it is actually more of “a management crisis.”

“The reality is, when you refer to it as an energy crisis, you give the impression that it is somehow a problem with the actual energy source. The problem is, of course, the lack of conducive policies to make sure that the energy reaches the (necessary) markets,” Jafar said, speaking on the sidelines of the World Economic Forum’s Annual Meeting in Davos. “And this is related, fundamentally, to many, many years of underinvestment in critical sources of energy, in order to provide energy security to large parts of the world.”

The headlines speak for themselves. Residents in the UK have been seeing ads suggesting coal furnaces as a replacement for electric or gas heating in their homes as a way to cut costs, while Europeans have been warned to brace for tough winters ahead.

“That’s why I refer to it as a management crisis — not to be facetious, but because we need to learn,” he said. “Policymakers need to learn to solve these problems with long-term conducive policies, and not short-term politics. (If you try) to address these challenges with short-term politics, this is going to be the result.”

Every year at Davos, curated panels sound the alarm on global warming, climate change, and the need to curb the world’s dependence on oil. But little has actually changed. Ironically enough, new research commissioned by Greenpeace found that private jet emissions quadrupled during last year’s conference. Of the 1,040 private jets that landed, 53 percent were making trips of less than 750 km that could easily have been made by train or car, with the shortest flight clocking in at only 21 km.




US special presidential envoy for climate (right) speaks during a session titled Philanthropy: A Catalyst for Protecting Our Planet at the WEF meeting this week. (WEF/ Valeriano Di Domenico)

Attendees — and the wider world — were berated by UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres in his speech on Wednesday. “We are flirting with climate disaster,” he said. “Every week brings a new climate horror story. Today, fossil-fuel producers and their enablers are still racing to expand production, knowing full well that their business model is inconsistent with human survival.” 

Jafar concurs, but doesn’t see it as solely a climate issue, rather one that interlinks with the environment.

“It is a climate-nature nexus, which, of course, the world needs to come to terms with. Supporting and enabling a greener evolution of our energy systems is an imperative,” he said. “Not just on a regional level, but on a global (level, there) has to be a concerted effort across business, policymakers and civil society.”

Despite countries across the globe ratifying climate acts, promising to cut down on emissions and find better, cleaner sources of energy, more needs to be done across the board.

“I think growth and climate are two sides of the same coin. And the edge of that coin, if you will, is conducive policy to make sure that we are pursuing low emissions, but not low growth,” Jafar said.

With the UN Climate Change Conference, COP27, having taken place in Egypt in November, and with COP28 to be hosted by the UAE later this year, many see now as the ideal time to “set the stage for 2035 for the region to become a leader and pioneer,” as the WEF’s head of Middle East and North Africa, Maround Kairouz, put it in an earlier interview.

“The UAE has been doing that by building out renewable energy. It's already supported and invested in at least 20 gigawatts, I believe, of renewable energy and has a goal to increase that to 100 gigawatts by 2030,” Jafar said.

Indeed, the UAE Net Zero by 2050 strategic initiative was announced in 2021, making the Emirates the first country in the Middle East and North Africa to commit to a target of net-zero emissions.




Crescent Enterprises CEO Badr Jafar at the WEF Annual Meeting 2023 in Davos-Klosters on January 17, 2023. (WEF / Valeriano Di Domenico)

Jafar also cited global philanthropy and faith-based giving as other integral forms of investment that have not been expanded to their full potential.

“Climate philanthropy is growing rapidly. It’s grown by three times over the last five years, and it can grow significantly in the years to come,” he said. 

“We need to create awareness and we need to create alliances. This is what COP28 will also do — help to create an alliance of philanthropists working with family offices and other creative capital actors to come together to really unite, in furtherance of our net-zero, nature-positive goals.”

Jafar claims that there are moves underway in emerging markets to make a big difference in the years to come. 

“One is greater institutionalization of philanthropy in these markets,” he said, “The second is massive intergenerational wealth transfer; in Asia alone, approximately $5 trillion (will pass) from one generation to the next.

“And the third is a greater appreciation of the interconnectedness of the climate crisis with other systems like health, food security, national security, and, of course, social justice.”

Jafar believes that such developments will mean the world witnesses “a big change and a big uptick in philanthropic engagement, but also climate philanthropy.”

 


Violence in Tunisia prompts increase in migrants heading for Europe

Violence in Tunisia prompts increase in migrants heading for Europe
Updated 20 March 2023

Violence in Tunisia prompts increase in migrants heading for Europe

Violence in Tunisia prompts increase in migrants heading for Europe
  • Sub-Saharan migrants cross Mediterranean after President Saied blames them for crime, demographic change
  • Italian PM Meloni warns Europe faces ‘invasion’ if more not done to halt flow of people

LONDON: Migrants from the Ivory Coast and other sub-Saharan countries are attempting to flee to Europe after an uptick in violence against them in Tunisia.

North Africa has long been used as a staging post for people desperate to leave the continent and travel northward, but numbers have increased after Tunisian President Kais Saied blamed migrants for an increase in crime in his country, and claimed their presence was part of a plot to “change the demographic makeup” of Tunisia.

That has led to a number of migrants facing violence or eviction from their accommodation. Some have even been shot at.

One Ivorian migrant, 30-year-old Noela, told The Times: “My husband was arrested, I have been robbed at knifepoint and I am scared to leave home. People here were nice, but now things have changed.”

Many are now buying boats in order to strike out for Italy, despite efforts by Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni to curb the number of migrants traveling to the peninsula.

An activist in the Tunisian port town of Sfax, which is seeing the bulk of the traffic, said: “Sailings are linked to that speech (by President Saied) and Ivorians are the biggest group among those leaving.”

Meloni claims charity organizations running boats in the region are helping migrants to make dangerous crossings, and has warned Europe faces “an invasion” if more is not done to stop the flow. So far this year 20,000 people have successfully made the journey to Italy, with 12,000 of those coming from Tunisia.

At least 80 people died in the Mediterranean last month on the way to Italy from Turkey, while 30 more drowned off the coast of Libya last week.

Between March 6 and 12, Ivorians, whose country has seen a number of civil wars since the turn of the century, made up the largest single group among the 3,300 people who made the trip to Italy, most via the island of Lampedusa. Another 1,500 people, mostly from sub-Saharan Africa, were turned back by the Tunisian coast guard.

A Tunisian people smuggler told The Times that many were making the trip now as it was “the last chance for them” amid Tunisia’s increasing hostility and Italy tightening its rules.

Another smuggler added that Tunisians were increasingly refusing to travel with sub-Saharans across the sea so as not to give away their identity on account of their skin color, leading to migrants buying vessels to pilot themselves.

“They have no jobs, no food, nothing. This has convinced them to go as soon as possible,” he told The Times. “They are good — they don’t steal boats, but they buy them.”

Ivorian DJ Dobe Aboubacar, based in Tunis, said most of his countrymen in Tunisia planned to leave for Germany or France.

“Because of the poor economy in Tunisia — and then because of the president’s speech — even more now want to leave,” Aboubacar, who runs a Facebook page for migrants in Tunisia, added.


Palestinian PM blasts ‘racism’ of Israeli minister

Palestinian PM blasts ‘racism’ of Israeli minister
Updated 20 March 2023

Palestinian PM blasts ‘racism’ of Israeli minister

Palestinian PM blasts ‘racism’ of Israeli minister
  • Israeli finance minister Bezalel Smotrich: ‘There are no Palestinians, because there are no Palestinian people’

RAMALLAH, Palestinian Territories: Palestinian prime minister Mohammad Shtayyeh on Monday blasted as “inflammatory” remarks made by far-right Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich that Palestinians do not exist.
“There are no Palestinians, because there are no Palestinian people,” Smotrich said Sunday, quoting French-Israeli Zionist activist Jacques Kupfer, speaking at an event in Paris according to a video circulating on social media.
“After 2,000 years of exile, the prophecies of Jeremiah, Ezekiel and Isaiah are beginning to come true and God is gathering his people, the people of Israel are returning home,” Smotrich said.
“There are Arabs around who don’t like it, so what do they do? They invent a fictitious people and claim fictitious rights to the land of Israel, only to fight the Zionist movement,” he added.
Smotrich last year became a minister in the cabinet of Israel’s veteran leader Benjamin Netanyahu, which analysts have called the most right-wing government in the country’s history.
“It is the historical truth, it is the biblical truth... the Arabs in Israel must hear it, as well as certain Jews who are confused in Israel, this truth must be heard here at the Elysee Palace (in Paris), and at the White House in Washington, and everyone must hear this truth,” Smotrich continued.
Shtayyeh, speaking before a cabinet meeting of the Palestinian Authority on Monday, said the “inflammatory statements are consistent with the first Zionist sayings of ‘a land without a people for a people without a land’.”
He said the comments were “conclusive evidence of the extremist, racist Zionist ideology... of the current Israeli government.”
Smotrich and his Religious Zionism group have a history of making incendiary remarks about Palestinians.
In February, Smotrich called for the Palestinian town of Hawara in the occupied West Bank to be “wiped out” after two Israelis were shot dead by an alleged Hamas militant.
Hundreds of rampaging Israeli settlers later torched Palestinian homes and cars in the West Bank town.

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Iraq to hold provincial elections on November 6

Iraq to hold provincial elections on November 6
Updated 20 March 2023

Iraq to hold provincial elections on November 6

Iraq to hold provincial elections on November 6
  • Elections for the councils, the first in a decade, will take place in 15 of 18 Iraqi provinces

BAGHDAD: Iraq’s parliament has set November 6 as the date for elections for provincial councils, powerful bodies that were dissolved amid anti-government protests in 2019.
“Provincial elections will take place on November 6, 2023,” a statement from parliament said Monday, after lawmakers agreed on the date overnight.
The elections for the councils, the first in a decade, will take place in 15 of 18 Iraqi provinces, excluding the three provinces in the autonomous Kurdistan region of northern Iraq.
The provincial councils, created by the 2005 constitution following the fall of Saddam Hussein’s regime, carry relatively significant power in federal Iraq, including allocating the budgets for health, transport and education.
The last provincial elections took place in 2013, when loyalists of then prime minister Nuri Al-Maliki came out on top.
The next provincial elections should have taken place in 2018, but were postponed.
A year later, amid vast anti-government rallies, protesters demanded and obtained the dissolution of the provincial councils, in part because critics accused them of being rife with corruption.
Alaa Al-Rikabi, an independent MP who emerged in the aftermath of the October 2019 protest movement, condemned the return of the councils.
“We refuse to allow them to be reinstated,” he said, adding that they “open the door wide to corruption.”


Iraq PM to hold Turkiye talks on water, Kurdish rebels

Iraq PM to hold Turkiye talks on water, Kurdish rebels
Updated 20 March 2023

Iraq PM to hold Turkiye talks on water, Kurdish rebels

Iraq PM to hold Turkiye talks on water, Kurdish rebels
  • Shia Al-Sudani to meet Turkiye’s president Recep Tayyip Erdogan on his first visit to Iraq’s northern neighbor since he came to power in October
BAGHDAD: Iraqi Prime Minister Mohamed Shia Al-Sudani will visit Turkiye on Tuesday for talks including on scarce water resources and the rebel Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), a government source said.
Sudani is set to meet Turkiye’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on his first visit to Iraq’s northern neighbor since he came to power in October, an adviser to the head of the Iraqi government said, speaking anonymously.
“The two main issues are water and the presence of the PKK in northern Iraq,” he added, referring to the rebel group that has been fighting the Turkish army for decades.
War-scarred Iraq is now digging ever deeper for water as a frenzy of dam-building, mainly in Turkiye, sucks water out of the region’s two great rivers, the Tigris and Euphrates.
The Tigris and the Euphrates both have their sources in Turkiye, and Baghdad has long accused Ankara of withholding water in dams that choke the rivers, dramatically reducing flows into Iraq.
According to official Iraqi statistics from last year, the level of the Tigris entering Iraq has dropped to just 35 percent of its average over the past century.
Declining river flows have been made worse by a dire lack of rainfall in recent years, coupled with poor irrigation practices in Iraq that see excessive exploitation of water from the rivers.
Amid criticism, Turkiye’s ambassador to Iraq, Ali Riza Guney, ruffled feathers last July when he said, “water is largely wasted in Iraq” and called on people to “use the available water more efficiently.”
Sudani will also discuss with Erdogan the presence of rear bases of Kurdish fighters from the Turkish PKK rebels in northern Iraq, which Ankara has repeatedly sought to root out in air and ground operations.
The rebels have kept up a deadly insurgency for Kurdish self-rule in southeastern Turkiye since 1984.
Turkiye has dozens of military facilities in northern Iraq for use in its war against the PKK, which Ankara and its Western allies blacklist as a “terrorist” group.
In July 2022, Iraq blamed Turkiye for artillery strikes on a park in Iraqi Kurdistan that killed nine civilians, including women and children.
Turkiye denied its troops were responsible and accused the PKK.

Kuwait Oil Company declares ‘state of emergency’ after oil spill on land

Kuwait Oil Company declares ‘state of emergency’ after oil spill on land
Updated 20 March 2023

Kuwait Oil Company declares ‘state of emergency’ after oil spill on land

Kuwait Oil Company declares ‘state of emergency’ after oil spill on land
  • No injuries or disruption to production had been reported

KUWAIT: The Kuwait Oil Company declared a “state of emergency” on Monday after an oil spill on land in the west of the country, according to a statement posted on the company’s Twitter account.

However, no injuries or disruption to production had been reported, said Qusai Al-Amer, head of admin support at the company.

“No toxic fumes have been detected on site,” he added.

Teams have been dispatched to determine the source of the leak and contain the incident, Al-Amer said.

The Kuwait Oil Company has previously reported oil leaks in its fields in 2020 and 2016.

In 2017, Kuwaiti authorities reported two slicks off the Gulf’s state’s shores over the span of a few days.

With AFP