Saudi Arabia’s progress in turning its climate ambitions into actions
Countries around the world are coming together now that COP27, the annual United Nations climate change conference in Egypt’s Sharm El-Sheikh has concluded, and are expected to show how they are turning their climate ambitions and commitments into actions.
A year has passed since Saudi Arabia announced its ambition to achieve net-zero emissions by 2060. Net-zero emissions are achieved when the quantity of emissions generated by a country or company is balanced by the quantity of emissions removed from the atmosphere. This balance can be achieved by reducing, avoiding, or removing emissions.
Saudi Arabia also revised its 2030 emissions target last year in its Nationally Determined Contribution. NDCs are essentially climate action plans that lie at the heart of the Paris Agreement, which is an international treaty for tackling climate change that almost every country in the world signed. Parties to the Paris Agreement such as Saudi Arabia submit NDCs to the
UNFCCC every five years. These NDCs generally include an emissions target and plans for achieving that target.
In its updated NDC, Saudi Arabia pledged to reduce, avoid, and remove 278 million tons of greenhouse gas emissions annually, including gases like carbon dioxide (CO2) and methane, by 2030.
Saudi Arabia also detailed in its NDC its multi-faceted approach to achieving this target, highlighting its plans for energy efficiency, renewable energy, carbon capture, utilization, and storage (CCUS), and hydrogen, to name a few. Saudi Arabia is already making substantial progress in many of these areas and demonstrating its leadership when it comes to implementation. Energy efficiency in Saudi Arabia provides one of the best examples of successful implementation, having played a key role in reducing Saudi Arabia’s energy consumption and CO2 emissions. Saudi Arabia established the Saudi Energy Efficiency Center in 2010 and launched the Saudi Energy Efficiency Program. Since then, the program has led to numerous actions that have improved energy efficiency across multiple sectors.
For example, in the buildings sector, thermal insulation in new buildings became mandatory, and the minimum energy performance standards for appliances like air conditioners were increased. Financial incentives were also introduced, such as the recent Estbdal program, which allows consumers to replace their old window air conditioner with a new and more efficient unit, with a 1,000 Saudi Riyal discount on the price of the new unit.
Other examples of energy efficiency actions include soft loans for energy efficiency in the industrial sector, which have helped reduce the emission intensities of cement, iron, and petrochemical manufacturing. They also include the implementation of energy efficiency labeling for electrical appliances, fuel economy labeling and fuel economy standards for cars, and extensive energy awareness campaigns through various channels. Renewable energy is also starting to play a rapidly growing role in reducing Saudi Arabia’s emissions. Saudi Arabia is blessed with natural solar and wind potential and has been scaling up its renewable energy projects. For example, there is the fully operational Sakaka project, the first “utilityscale” solar power project in Saudi Arabia, with a 300 megawatt (MW) capacity. This project had set a world record for the lowest solar power generation cost. Another example is Dumat Al Jandal, Saudi Arabia’s first utility-scale wind project. With a capacity of 400 MW, Dumat Al Jandal is the largest wind farm in the Middle East. Additionally, Saudi Arabia very recently announced five new renewable energy projects. In total, there are currently 17 major renewable energy projects that are either already operational or under development in Saudi Arabia. Nevertheless, this number will need to grow exponentially over the coming years for Saudi Arabia to meet its ambitious target of generating 50% of its electricity from renewables by 2030.
The vision and goals set by the Saudi government have encouraged leading Saudi entities to set their own voluntary emission targets. Over the last year or two, Saudi Aramco, SABIC, STC, ACWA Power, and Ma’aden have set targets to achieve net-zero by 2050.