Efforts instrumental in ensuring green future for all commended
The summit gathers industry leaders, innovators and policymakers to discuss clean energy solutions and sustainable initiatives
Sheikh Theyab Bin Mohamed Bin Zayed Al Nahyan, Deputy Chairman of the Presidential Court for Development and Fallen Heroes’ Affairs, has atended the World Future Energy Summit 2024 at ADNEC Abu Dhabi.
The summit gathers industry leaders, innovators and policymakers to discuss clean energy solutions and sustainable initiatives.
Sheikh Theyab praised the efforts of the UAE to support the development of clean energy technologies globally to ensure a green future for all.
With tempestuous Gulf rains acting as a timely reminder of the need for urgent climate action, the 16th edition of the World Future Energy Summit, hosted by Masdar, opened in Abu Dhabi today with calls for collaborative action to ensure average global temperatures do not exceed that of pre-industrial times by more than 1.5 degrees Celsius.
Delivering a keynote speech to open the three-day event at Abu Dhabi National Exhibition Centre (ADNEC), Sheikha Shamma bint Sultan bin Khalifa Al Nahyan, President and
CEO of the UAE Independent Climate Change Accelerators (UICCA), commended the recent collaborative launch of the Roadmap to 1.5°C by the COP Presidencies Troika, which consists of the UAE and the next two COP hosts, Azerbaijan and Brazil. Sheikha Shamma warned, however, that limiting global climate change to 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels will “require unprecedented finance”.
“We know that effective climate action cannot take place if we work in silos,” the UICCA said. “Instead, we believe in the power of convening diverse voices to promote dialogue, knowledge exchange, and creative problem-solving. Forums such as World Future Energy Summit offer crucial opportunities for actors from different sectors to exchange views, sparking ideas and collaborative action.
“The UAE prides itself on building bridges to everywhere and I’m so pleased to hear of the COP Presidencies Troika. I am full of confidence that this new coalition will be an important steward on our collective pathway to keeping global warming below the 1.5°C threshold… [yet it] will require unprecedented climate finance.”
As a solution, Sheikha Shamma highlighted the potential of “Blended Finance”, which can be broadly defined as a combination of public concessional finance with public or private capital. The model is being increasingly recognised as a key mechanism to deliver the financial resources needed to fight climate change. A new analysis by UICCA in cooperation with Convergence and HSBC into Blended Finance in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) found the financial model to be in its infancy, with a total committed financing of US$14.2 billion. Such a figure represents seven per cent of global blended transactions, while climate-related blended transactions amount to roughly $7 billion.
Also speaking as part of the opening keynote programme was Francesco La Camera, Directorgeneral of the International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA). According to La Camera, priorities for the energy transition and immediate steps to accelerate progress towards tripling renewable power capacity to at least 11 terawats (TW) by 2030 need to be explored.despite 2023 marking the largest surge in renewable power generation to date, IRENA’S latest capacity data shows the world is still falling short, with last year’s record 473 gigawats (GW) some distance off the almost 1,100GW required annually.
“The energy transition is accelerating rapidly, but it clearly remains off track, with an unacceptable and uneven distribution of renewable growth that disproportionately affects the Global South,” said La Camera. “We need an urgent global course-correction to address this growing disparity, or we risk our collective climate goal to triple renewable power capacity by 2030 becoming simply unatainable.”
Meanwhile, addressing the opening of the Green Hydrogen Summit, a Masdar-hosted event running as part of the World Future Energy Summit, Boris Johnson, former Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, praised the UAE as “one of the world’s great centres of technological innovation”, before citing the country’s hosting of COP28 last year as a “triumph” for reversing net-zero sceptics.