Sustainable development and climate action in Saudi Arabia

Sustainable development and climate action in Saudi Arabia

Sustainable development and climate action in Saudi Arabia
A view of the Shuaibah Solar Photovoltaic Independent Power Plant Project in Makkah region. (SPA/File)
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Saudi Arabia is working towards economic diversification and is increasingly concerned with this development being sustainable. The Kingdom has set out goals for its green transition under the Vision 2030 framework and has begun to deploy a multipronged approach to sustainable development.

There is an equal focus on adopting clean technologies and improving green financing. With an emphasis on continuous development, the Kingdom has also prioritized pertinent issues such as tackling poverty, hunger and climate change and expanding access to healthcare and education.

Climate change is driving this focus towards sustainable development. The Middle East is warming at twice the global average rate, with temperatures projected to rise by 4 C by 2050. This has led to more frequent heatwaves, unpredictable rainfall and shrinking arable land.

This is of concern not only for the future of Saudi society but also its present as the Kingdom is witnessing an unprecedented growth in the number of expatriates and tourists, coupled with unsustainable patterns of water and energy usage.

The Kingdom has committed to a net-zero emissions target by 2060 through the circular carbon economy approach that focuses on reducing, reusing, recycling and removing carbon.

As part of the Saudi Green Initiative, Saudi Arabia aims to reduce carbon emissions by 278 million tonnes annually by 2030 and transition to sourcing 50 percent of its energy from renewables.

Furthermore, there is a strong push to involve the private sector in environmental sustainability projects, particularly in renewable energy, waste management and eco-friendly construction.

Economic diversification has led to rapid urbanization across the Kingdom, including planned smart cities like King Abdullah Economic City and NEOM. In response to the resulting rise in energy demands, Saudi Arabia is accelerating its adoption of renewables.

Electricity consumption in the country rose by 5 percent in 2023, reaching 325 terawatt hours, as demand grew significantly to power air conditioning units, water desalination, non-oil activity and digitalization.

Chief among its renewable choices are solar and wind energy. Saudi Arabia is home to abundant sun exposure, with an average of 8.9 hours per day.

The Kingdom has partnered with regional and international partners, including the UAE, China and France, to develop its domestic solar infrastructure. Notably, the Kingdom’s Public Investment Fund launched three major solar photovoltaic projects worth $3.3 billion in July.

These initiatives include agreements to localize the manufacturing of wind turbines and PV cells.

Balancing industrial growth, oil production, and sustainability will remain a key challenge in the short term.

Zaid M. Belbagi

Meanwhile, the design for NEOM is indicative of the Kingdom’s commitment to sustainable development.

The new smart city will transform the Red Sea coast into an urban environment powered entirely by renewable energy. It features various projects to integrate nature and urban sustainability, including The Line, Oxagon, Trojena and Sindalah.

The Kingdom has also established the NEOM Green Hydrogen Company, a joint venture with ACWA Power and Air Products, to export up to 600 tons of hydrogen per day by 2026.

The Kingdom is also a significant player in green financing in the Middle East. Among the Gulf Cooperation Council states alone, green investments could contribute $2 trillion to economic growth and create a million jobs.

The Saudi Industrial Development Fund offers financial support for renewable energy projects, while the PIF has allocated $10 billion for large-scale green initiatives to be completed by 2026.

The government has introduced incentives for investors, including tax breaks, land leasing, foreign ownership opportunities and carbon credit trading.

Saudi Arabia’s efforts also extend to the global stage, with active participation in international climate forums such as COP, the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, and the Clean Energy Ministerial.

This underscores Saudi Arabia’s dedication to leading the global transition towards a green economy and achieving its climate action goals.

Popular support in adopting best practices is key to the success of sustainable development. The Kingdom benefits from the presence of a largely young population that is environmentally conscious and in tune with global trends.

PwC’s recent Global Youth Outlook report found that 91 percent of young Saudi respondents were aware of the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals and 76 percent believed that the Saudi government is the leading actor in this transformation, followed by community-level efforts.

They identified the issues of education, water, and sanitation, food security and strong institutions amongst the top priorities for the Kingdom. This high level of awareness is encouraging, as the Saudi youth is at the forefront of domestic transformation in the Kingdom.

Aramco, the Saudi national oil company, has also joined the transition to green energy. In 2022, Aramco launched the Sustainability Fund to allocate $1.5 billion to meet its net zero targets.

Earlier this year, Aramco allocated $4 billion over the next four years to its global venture capital arm Aramco Ventures, which focuses on a range of investments including green technology.

Its Sustainability Fund invests in start-ups that can support Aramco’s ambition to achieve net-zero greenhouse gas emissions across its assets by 2050.

Aramco has also supported King Abdullah University of Science and Technology with $100 million to support research on sustainability over the next 10 years.

Through these initiatives, Saudi Arabia is taking steps towards a sustainable future, addressing both environmental challenges and its economic diversification goals. Yet balancing industrial growth, oil production, and sustainability will remain a key challenge in the short term.

Global oil revenue has been challenged by geopolitical conflicts in Ukraine and the Middle East, as well as the return of the Libyan oil supply crisis. This comes as international demand for oil is wavering amid the rise of non-hydrocarbon energy alternatives.

Any significant shortfall in oil revenue may limit the Kingdom’s ability to finance its green projects. Thus, despite growing interest in renewables, the Kingdom has indicated it will continue prioritizing investment in the hydrocarbons sector for the foreseeable future.

This strategy aims to maintain market share during the anticipated long-term decline in hydrocarbon demand. Now it must establish a harmonious balance between hydrocarbon revenue and investments in renewable energy.

Zaid M. Belbagi is a political commentator, and an adviser to private clients between London and the Gulf Cooperation Council.
 

Disclaimer: Views expressed by writers in this section are their own and do not necessarily reflect Arab News' point of view

Why is Gaza truce under threat?

Why is Gaza truce under threat?
Updated 13 February 2025
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Why is Gaza truce under threat?

Why is Gaza truce under threat?
  • Under the truce, the warring parties have already completed five exchanges of Israeli hostages and Palestinian prisoners, but have in recent days have entered into a blame game over the implementation of the deal
  • US President Donald Trump’s forceful backing of ally Israel has put the ceasefire under strain, and particularly his proposal to take over the Gaza Strip and remove its Palestinian inhabitants

JERUSALEM: A little over three weeks since it came into effect, a ceasefire deal between Israel and Hamas that halted the Gaza war has become increasingly fragile.
Under the truce, the warring parties have already completed five exchanges of Israeli hostages and Palestinian prisoners, but have in recent days have entered into a blame game over the implementation of the deal.
US President Donald Trump’s forceful backing of ally Israel has put the ceasefire under strain, and particularly his proposal to take over the Gaza Strip and remove its Palestinian inhabitants.
The truce is currently in its first phase. The next ones have not yet been finalized.
Here are the positions of the key actors who could decide the future of the truce:
For days now, Hamas has accused Israel of not respecting the agreement, saying that the amount and type of aid entering Gaza was insufficent.
Israeli authorities have denied the claims.
In several statements, the Palestinian militants have said they had not received machinery requested to clear the rubble in Gaza, and complained about obstacles to evacuating wounded people to Egypt under the terms of the agreement.
On Wednesday, Hamas said that as a result of the Israeli violations it would postpone indefinitely the next hostage release, which was due to take place on February 15.
Hugh Lovatt, a researcher at the European Council on Foreign Relations, told AFP that the announcement from Hamas may be an attempt to force a decision on the next phases of the truce.
“Hamas’s aim is to break the deadlock in the negotiations on the second phase of the agreement,” he said, adding that the Palestinian movement has been trying to obtain guarantees that the ceasefire will hold and the war will come of a permanent end.
It’s a “Hail Mary pass,” said Lovatt, “because they fear that Israel will take advantage of Trump’s support to impose new conditions and delay the implementation of the agreement.”
The ongoing first phase of the ceasefire is for 42 days. During this period, negotiations for the second phase were meant to start but that has not happened yet.
On Wednesday, a Hamas delegation arrived in Cairo to discuss the disputes over the agreement with Egyptian negotiators.
But a Hamas spokesman warned that the group would not bow down to the “language of threats” from the United States and Israel.
Trump on Monday said “all hell” would break out in Gaza if Hamas did not free all Israeli hostages held in the territory by Saturday noon.
Under the terms of the truce, not all hostages were meant to be freed during the first phase.
The president’s threat came soon after he announced a plan for the United States to take control of the Gaza Strip and move its almost 2.4 million residents to Jordan or Egypt.
The proposal has provoked widespread international condemnation, and experts have said it would violate international law.
Yonatan Freeman, an international relations expert at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, said that Trump’s statements had “underscored the US backing of Israel.”
“Trump and Netanyahu have both emphasized the importance of releasing hostages,” Freeman said.
He said that despite making threats, he did not believe that either Trump of Israel’s leaders wanted the war to resume.
US Secretary of State Marco Rubio has said Hamas cannot be allowed to use the ceasefire to “rebuild itself and recover strength.”
Echoing statements from the US president, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Tuesday that Israel would resume “intense fighting” in Gaza if Hamas did not return hostages by Saturday.
Netanyahu did not specify whether he expected all the hostages to be freed, or a smaller batch due for release under the terms of the deal.
“It’s in his best interest to do it gradually,” said Mairav Zonszein, a senior analyst with the International Crisis Group.
According to her, Netanyahu was deliberately being ambiguous and was “buying time” to extend the first stage of the truce and delay talks about the post-war future of the Gaza Strip.
But Netanyahu also faces domestic “public pressure” to secure the release of the remaining hostages, including through indirect negotiations with Hamas, said Zonszein.
“It could be a determining factor that when the three hostages came out last Saturday, they looked really, really bad,” she said of the three Israelis freed on Saturday.
They appeared emaciated, spurring concern among Israelis for the fate of those still in captivity.
Despite their disputes, Zonszein said that the sides have not “given up on anything yet.”
“They’re just playing power games.”


Wife of Colombian-Israeli hostage receives proof of life

Wife of Colombian-Israeli hostage receives proof of life
Updated 13 February 2025
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Wife of Colombian-Israeli hostage receives proof of life

Wife of Colombian-Israeli hostage receives proof of life

BOGOTA: The wife of Elkana Bohbot, a Colombian-Israeli man being held hostage by Hamas, said Wednesday she had received proof he was alive and denounced the “terrible” conditions in which he was being held.
In an interview with Colombia’s Blu Radio, Rebecca Gonzalez said that she received news of her husband from Ohad Ben Ami, one of the three hostages released by Hamas last weekend.
The three, whose emaciated appearance caused widespread shock, were released under the fifth exchange of prisoners since Israel and Hamas agreed a truce in their 15-month war on January 19.
“He (Ben Ami) brought me proof of life from my husband. I received a message, I even received a song in which he asks me to be strong,” Gonzalez, who is Colombian, said.
“He is alive, and we need to get him out of there immediately,” she pleaded.
Relating Ben Ami’s account of his captivity, which left him in a “severe nutritional state” according to doctors, Gonzalez said: “They are in tunnels, they are not allowed to see the light, they are not allowed to go out for air.”
She said her husband was living on a piece of bread a day, “very little water” and was “mistreated physically and psychologically.”
Bohbot, who hails from the town of Mevasseret Tzion near Jerusalem and has a young son, was one of the producers of the Supernova music festival, which Hamas gunmen stormed during their October 7, 2023 attack on Israel.
His childhood friends and fellow rave organizers Michael and Osher Vaknin were killed in the attack.
A Hamas video from October 7 posted online showed Bohbot, now aged 36, bound and injured in the face, being held by the Palestinian armed group.
Colombian President Gustavo Petro gave him Colombian nationality a month after the attacks.
The Hamas attack on Israel resulted in the deaths of 1,211 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally of official Israeli figures.
The group also took 251 hostages, of whom 73 remain in Gaza, including 35 the Israeli military says are dead.
Israel’s retaliatory campaign has reduced most of Gaza to rubble and killed at least 48,222 people, the majority of them civilians, according to figures from the territory’s Hamas-run health ministry.
The United Nations considers the ministry’s figures reliable.


Unions sue Trump, fearing mass firings of federal employees

Unions sue Trump, fearing mass firings of federal employees
Updated 13 February 2025
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Unions sue Trump, fearing mass firings of federal employees

Unions sue Trump, fearing mass firings of federal employees
Reuters

Five unions sued the Trump administration on Wednesday, seeking to block what they called the possible mass firing of hundreds of thousands of federal employees who resist pressure to accept buyouts.
In a complaint filed in Washington, D.C. federal court, the unions accused the White House and others in the Executive Branch of undermining Congress’ role in creating and funding a federal workforce, violating separation of powers principles.
The plaintiffs include the United Auto Workers, the National Treasury Employees Union, the National Federation of Federal Employees, the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers, and the International Federation of Professional and Technical Engineers.
Ten defendants were named, including Trump, the heads of agencies, the Department of Defense, Internal Revenue Service and Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, and the acting director of the Office of Personnel Management.
Last week, some unions sued the Trump administration to block the buyouts. On Monday, US District Judge George O’Toole in Boston kept in place a block of the buyout plan for federal employees, as he considers whether to impose it for a longer period of time.
The decision prevents Trump’s administration from implementing the buyout plan for now, giving a temporary victory to labor unions that have sued to stop it entirely.
On Tuesday, meanwhile, Trump ordered US agencies to work closely with billionaire Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency to identify federal employees who could be laid off.

Russia, Ukraine trade blame for IAEA disruptions at Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant

Russia, Ukraine trade blame for IAEA disruptions at Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant
Updated 13 February 2025
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Russia, Ukraine trade blame for IAEA disruptions at Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant

Russia, Ukraine trade blame for IAEA disruptions at Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant

KYIV: Russia and Ukraine on Wednesday accused each other of blocking the rotation of staff from the International Atomic Energy Agency at the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant in southern Ukraine.
Moscow’s troops seized the facility — Europe’s largest nuclear power station — in the first days of its invasion of Ukraine, and both sides have repeatedly accused the other of risking a potentially devastating nuclear disaster by attacking the site.
Staff from the UN nuclear watchdog have been based there since September 2022 to monitor nuclear safety.
Fighting meant the IAEA staff could not be swapped out as part of a planned rotation on Wednesday — the second such delay in a week — both Kyiv and Moscow said, trading blame for the incident.
Ukrainian foreign ministry spokesman Georgiy Tykhy said in a statement: “Russia has once again deliberately disrupted the rotation of IAEA experts at the Zaporizhzhia plant.”
Inspectors spend around five weeks at the plant in stints before being swapped out in a complex procedure that involves traveling across the front line under supervision from the Russian and Ukrainian militaries.
Tykhy accused Russia’s army of opening fire near where the planned rotation was taking place, saying Moscow’s goal was to force the IAEA team to travel through Russian-controlled territory and “violate Ukraine’s sovereignty and territorial integrity.”
Russia’s foreign ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said the Ukrainian army blocked the IAEA team from traveling to an agreed meeting point and were attacking the area with drones — at which point the Russian military withdrew its support team and returned to the station.
“On their return, the convoy carrying Russian military personnel and IAEA experts... came under attack by drone and mortar strikes,” Zakharova said in a statement.
The IAEA staff members were supposed to leave the station on February 5 in a rotation that was also delayed.
IAEA head Rafael Grossi was in both Ukraine and Russia last week, where he discussed the issue of rotations with officials from both countries.
In a statement, Grossi expressed his “deep regret” over the cancelation of the “carefully prepared and agreed rotation” due to excessive danger, calling the situation “completely unacceptable.”
“As a result of these extremely concerning events, I am in active consultation with both sides to guarantee the safety of our teams,” he said.


Suspect charged in killing of French schoolgirl, 11

Suspect charged in killing of French schoolgirl, 11
Updated 13 February 2025
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Suspect charged in killing of French schoolgirl, 11

Suspect charged in killing of French schoolgirl, 11
  • The body of the girl, named as Louise, was found on Saturday close to her school
  • French police on Monday arrested a man aged 23 and his DNA was found on Louise’s hands, according to prosecutors

EVRY, France: The prime suspect in the murder of an 11-year-old French schoolgirl, who was found in the woods with multiple stab wounds, was charged after confessing to the crime, prosecutors said on Wednesday.
In a killing that shocked France, the body of the girl, named as Louise, was found on Saturday close to her school. She had been missing since leaving school in the suburban town of Epinay-sur-Orge about 20 kilometers (12 miles) south of Paris on Friday afternoon.
French police on Monday arrested a man aged 23 and his DNA was found on Louise’s hands, according to prosecutors.
“The main suspect admitted to the charges against him while in custody,” public prosecutor Gregoire Dulin said in a statement. Later Wednesday, the prosecutors’ office said he had been charged and that they would ask a judge to approve keeping him in detention.
The man’s parents and girlfriend, 23, had also been detained on suspicion of failing to report a crime, prosecutors said.
On Saturday, prosecutor Dulin had said that “there is no evidence to suggest that sexual violence was committed.”
French media described the suspect as a “video game addict,” and Dulin said on Wednesday that he may have been looking for “somebody to rob” in an attempt “to calm down” after an altercation during an online video game.
But he “panicked” when Louise began to scream, Dulin added.
Le Parisien daily had earlier pointed to “the possibility of a sadistic act.” Although he was not known to suffer from psychiatric disorders, the suspect could be “very violent” and was known to have repeatedly beaten his younger sister, the newspaper added.
The killing comes at a time when law and order, and in particular crime against children, are major issues in French politics and society. Speaking on Wednesday, Interior Minister Bruno Retailleau expressed “deepest sympathy” to Louise’s family.
The hard-line minister has vowed to tighten law and order in France.
“The whole establishment is in shock,” Education Minister Elisabeth Borne said on Tuesday.
Flowers and candles have been placed in front of the Andre Maurois school that Louise attended, as well as at the foot of a tree where the body was found.
A woman, who provided only her first name, Josephine, said she felt “upset all weekend.”
“I wasn’t well, it made me think of my granddaughter and my grandson,” she said in the town where the body was found on Tuesday. “We’re not at peace anywhere.”
“As soon as I was told about it, I said it’s the little girl with long hair,” she added.
A psychological support unit has been set up in Epinay-sur-Orge.