In an interview with CNN anchor and correspondent Becky Anderson, International Renewable Energy Agency Director-General, Francesco La Camera and UAE Climate Minister Mariam Almheiri discuss the global energy transition and UAE’s plans for increased clean energy investment.
Key Quotes:
On the UAE’s plans for increased clean energy investment:
ALMHEIRI: When I talk about the UAE we have targets, we’ve set clean energy targets already at 2030 and 2050. And these targets are set and were on them. So, we’re now at about 9.2 gigawatts, we’re heading to 14 gigawatts by 2030. And by 2050, 50 percent of our energy supply will come from clean and renewable energy sources.
Now, what’s important is that there will be distractions along the way. And there will be countries that will be in need of oil and gas and – milk is taking steps in that direction. Since last year, the first of January, they’re completely running their operations on clean and renewables. And by 2025, they’re going to cut down their emissions by 25 percent. So, we have our target set, but we’re taking a two-pronged approach. So, we’re ramping up renewables, decarbonizing, but also understanding that since the world still will need oil and gas, we will be delivering oil and gas but delivering it in a responsible way and understanding that this is the transition as we go to a world with more renewables.
On the controversy around the designation of the first ever oil executive at the top table at COP28:
ALMHEIRI: You see for us convening countries means we need a whole skill set, or different skills, we need a whole set of experiences, we need a whole set of networks. And that’s why having Sovann – as the leadership team for the COP is for us an ideal situation where we bring in government where we bring in business leaders of the sectors that need to be brought to the table. We bring in NGOs, we bring in the vulnerable communities, and we bring in the youth. And that’s how we see it. So, they are bringing in the countries. And of course, they’re working very closely with us as the UAE who’s positioning ourselves on that center stage. And making sure that us as an oil and gas country, we have a story to tell. For us to make sure that this is a credible COP we need to focus on what we want to deliver, we need to be very results oriented.
On the obstacles that need to be overcome in order to successfully fight climate change:
CAMERA: We are convinced that it takes more than one century to build the infrastructure, I mean, physical policy, legal, institutional, professional skills to sustain the energy system centralized based on fossil fuels. So, the first barrier is that we can move rapidly enough to build a new energy system, if we don’t intervene on the infrastructure. And our main challenge that we don’t have a sanctuary, we cannot go slowly and build this. We have to be disruptive.
Impact of the energy crisis in Europe and the dash for natural gas and oil has had on energy transition:
CAMERA: Trying to consider this in two steps, the short term and the medium long term because these two are different results. It’s natural that in the short term, the crisis is having an impact. So, the question is how far we go in accelerating the share of renewables. If you don’t increase the share of renewables, oil and gas will remain there.
We have to move from just thinking about the supply also to the demand. And that infrastructure will be crucial for having the chance to put more renewables into the grid and the spirit of this needle because if we don’t do this, oil and gas will remain there.