wges 2017: building for future generations · governments, businesses and societies worldwide have...

WGES 2017: BUILDING FOR FUTURE GENERATIONS

T A B L E O F C O N T E N T S

Foreword by HE Saeed Mohammed Al Tayer

Top Line Figures

Introductory Remarks

DAY ONE

Plenary Session 1: The green economy, government strategies and SDGs driving the economic and social development agenda

Emirates Energy Award

Plenary Session 2: The future of smart cities: The next stage of urban evolution

Opening Ceremony

Parallel Session 1A: Innovation and renewable energy: the next generation of clean energy solutions

Parallel Session 1B: The emergence of innovative financing solutions for green initiatives

Parallel Session 2A: Leveraging public policy tools to drive green economy growth

Parallel Session 2B: Corporates and sustainability: the new agents of change

Youth Dialogue: Going Green: Practical or unrealistic for today’s youth?

DAY TWO

Plenary Session 3: Green finance: the role of the financial sector in the green economic transformation

Green Talk by David De Rothschild

Plenary Session 4: Translating the Green Economy Promise into Practice

Plenary Session 5: From Paris to Bonn: Global aspirations at a time of political uncertainty

Inspirational Talk by Kenneth D. Cameron

Parallel Session 3A: Policy Dialogue – The success formula for PPP: achieving growth and environmental impact

Parallel Session 3B: Youth engagement: innovation, entrepreneurship, and the green lifestyle

Parallel Session 4A: Policy Dialogue – Innovation and the developing world: from humble beginnings to global impact

Parallel Session 4B: Digital Transformation: The core of the new green economy

Dubai Declaration 2017

Sponsors & Partners

Photo Gallery

49

53

55

59

63

65

69

73

77

81

83

87

07

10

11

15

19

21

25

27

31

35

39

43

The UAE has long been at the forefront of of the global green debate, focused on becoming the world leader in sustainable development and achieving the Sustainable Development Goals outlined in the United Nations 2030 agenda.

The recently announced UAE National Climate Change Plan 2050 reflects our nation’s goals to become among the best prepared country to combat climate change and achieve sustainable development. This plan aims to unify the concerted efforts and enhance cooperation between the private and public sectors.The Dubai Clean Energy Strategy aims to provide 75% of Dubai’s total power output from clean energy in the year 2050, and Dubai continues to strive and lead several projects in the green space such as Shams Dubai, EV Green Charger, MBR Solar Park, and many more.

The World Green Economy Summit, now in its fourth year, is a leading global forum on the green economy, bringing together world-class experts from around the world to directly focus on advancing the global green economy and sustainability agenda.The Summit, held in Dubai in October 2017 under the patronage of His Highness Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Vice President and Prime Minister of the UAE and Ruler of Dubai, brought together over 70 prominent speakers to focus on three key pillars of the green economy; innovation & technology; finance & investment; and leadership & policy.

The discussions identified the importance of capitalizing on cutting-edge technology, investing in green technologies, and government’s role in facilitating policies in support of developing the green economy. The summit also provided the opportunity to

engage with the youth and provide an outlook on how they can adapt to an eco-friendly lifestyle.

The Summit also hosted the 3rd annual Emirates Energy Award, organized by the Dubai Supreme Council of Energy. The Awards honored 33 winners from around the world that pioneered to work in energy efficiency, sustainability and protecting the environment.Dubai continues its endeavours to become the global capital of green economy and reinforce its global position as role model in partnerships and green finance. Driven by its green economy strategies – from the UAE Centennial 2071, UAE Vision 2021, Dubai Plan 2021, UAE Green Agenda 2030 and Dubai Clean Energy Strategy 2050 to the Paris Agreement – we have set the course for our sustainable and green development.

In the spirit of the Summit’s outcomes, we reaffirm our engagement in the global efforts to promote sustainability, energy security, and protection of environment for future generations. We work to further enhance Dubai’s position as a global role model for sustainability, and we will pursue our relentless efforts with the world to deliver innovative solutions that contribute towards a global green economy transformation.

FOREWORD

VICE CHAIRMAN OF THE DUBAI SUPREME COUNCIL OF ENERGY, MD & CEO OF DUBAI ELECTRICITY AND WATER AUTHORITY (DEWA), AND CHAIRMAN OF WGES

HE SAEED MOHAMMED AL TAYER

7

TOP LINE FIGURES 10 10

INTRODUCTORY REMARKS

The latest edition of the World Green Economy Summit got off to a bold start, with a reinvigorated outlook for the UAE as a model of what sustainable economic development should look like.

The 2017 edition of the World Green Economy Summit held in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, began with a daring vision outlining the energy producer’s efforts to transform its economy into a truly sustainable world-leading model.

In introductory remarks ahead of the official opening of the two-day event in October, Fatima Al Foora Al Shamsi, Assistant Undersecretary for Electricity and Future Energy at the UAE Ministry of Energy, highlighted how a government-led 10-year plan known as Vision 2021 closely links the country’s sustainable economic development with social progress.

One of the key priorities of Vision 2021, Al Shamsi said, is the “delivery of a green economy - the objective set by the UAE leadership in this field and throughout the nation [is] to be a world leader as well as a centre for export and re-export of products and green technologies.”

She said the vision calls for creating and maintaining a sustainable environment, and support for economic growth and innovation.

Vision 2021 includes a range of programmes and policies relating to energy, agriculture, investment, and sustainable transport; it also calls for the creation of environmental policies and urban development, all with an aim of raising the overall quality of life in the UAE.

Recognising that water is a precious natural resource, Al Shamsi

said it was fundamental to a well-established and sustainable infrastructure particularly for water-scarce countries such as the UAE. The UAE Ministry of Energy recently launched the National Water Strategy 2036 which targets sustainable water use through a series of policies and guidelines.

Looking even further into the future, she spoke about how the UAE’s Energy Strategy 2050 seeks to diversify and stabilise the country’s energy landscape over the next three decades. Key to the strategy, she explained, was its launch in collaboration with strategically selected stakeholders.

“While there is a lot of work ahead for us, we work with the firm conviction that the UAE is united in its ambition to become a leading green economy,” said Al Shamsi.

She also focused on the importance of engaging government and private sector stakeholders, as well as those in academia, youth and the general citizenry of the country, to achieve the UAE’s Green Economy goals.

The UAE Energy Strategy 2050 also aims to preserve the country’s natural resources by increasing clean energy’s contribution to the total energy mix to 50% by 2050; it also targets cutting CO2 emissions by 70% and increasing energy efficiency by 40% over the same period.

Achieving these goals, Al Shamsi said, will require substantial growth in renewable energy resources as well as investments in the energy sector and the engagement of consumers and energy providers.

ASSISTANT UNDERSECRETARY FOR ELECTRICITY AND FUTURE ENERGYMINISTRY OF ENERGY, UAE

FATIMA AL-FOORA AL SHAMSI

Setting the context for her address, H.E. Dr. Aisha Bint Butti Bin Bishr, Director General of the Smart Dubai Office, highlighted that sustainability in the UAE is a strategy with a clear plan to establish the country as a global centre of clean energy and green economy.

She said Dubai’s smart city strategy emphasises sustainability, social inclusion and growth. Although technology is essential, it is only the means to an end – Smart Dubai’s main goal is to increase people’s happiness.

“Clean resources such as water, air and energy are essential for our residents to lead healthy, productive lives,” she said.

“Our Carbon Abatement Strategy will reduce (carbon) emissions by 16% in Dubai by 2021 through targeted programs. As buildings are a major contributor to emissions, Dubai is revising its building regulations and applying modifications to existing buildings to contain these emissions”.

Dubai will use solar power to ensure 7% of its energy needs are sourced from renewables by 2021. Likewise, the Dubai Autonomous Transportation Strategy 2030 requires 25% of all city transportation to be smart and driverless.

“Smart Dubai started two decades ago when HH Sheikh Mohammed launched the ICT strategy in 1999. From there, we started modernizing and digitizing our city, including e-government, Smart Government, Smart City, blockchain strategy, and Internet of Things strategy, all leading to our future-ready city in 2021.”

Therefore, the challenge has been to unite efforts underway in the public and private sectors and to connect existing ICT infrastructure to transform Dubai into a smarter city.

Today, Dubai residents can enjoy 197 smart initiatives and 1,129 smart services.

Dubai has achieved a happiness index level of 90%, a rating the city aims to increase to 95%. It is not just the people who are benefitting, Bishr noted: “Smart services have saved the government more than $1 billion over the past decade”.

“Dubai intends to continue along this path of economic and social prosperity while sustaining its resources and maintaining the cleanliness of its environment.”

DIRECTOR GENERALSMART DUBAI OFFICE, UAE

H.E. DR. AISHA BINT BUTTI BIN BISHR

CLEAN RESOURCES SUCH AS WATER, AIR AND ENERGY ARE ESSENTIAL FOR OUR RESIDENTS TO LEAD HEALTHY, PRODUCTIVE LIVES

INTRODUCTORY REMARKS 1211

D A Y O N E

THE GREEN ECONOMY, GOVERNMENT STRATEGIES AND SDGs: DRIVING THE ECONOMIC AND SOCIAL DEVELOPMENT AGENDA

PLENARY SESSION 1

RECOMMENDATIONS SUMMARY

Governments play a critical role in the transi-tion to a green economy, not only by setting the agenda but also by creating financial regu-lations and incentives.

Businesses are increasingly moving away from a mind-set of simply complying with environ-mental regulations towards leadership of green initiatives.

Across industries, there is an effort to reinvent business models as companies look for more sustainable ways to operate and realize the benefits of doing so.

Fossil fuels will remain part of the energy mix for a long time because they provide energy for critical sectors, including transport, power and aviation.

There is a dire need to address unemployment as millions of jobs in unsustainable industries will be lost.

Governments can learn from Costa Rica’s example – the country involved every ministry in its national sustainability agenda, which led to a revolution in policy.

Governments can also learn from the experience of France, which introduced the first-ever investor climate-reporting law in 2015 as part of its energy-transitionplanning.

Carbon capture, utilization and storage (CCUS) can significantly reduce carbon dioxide emissions and bring fossil fuels into sustainability.

Governments must take a holistic approach to Sustainable Development Goals, tackling both environmental and social challenges.

AGENDA

Governments, businesses and societies worldwide have started to mobilize their efforts to achieve sustainable development by 2030. Over the next 12 years, the UN’s 193 member-states are expected to work towards 17 global goals and 169 targets in a bid to end poverty, fight social inequality, and address climate change. The success of these ambitious goals largely depends on each country’s actions and plans.

This session brought together policymakers and financial experts to explore how these Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) are being integrated into national policies and the various challenges impeding the transition to a green economy.

KHALID ABULEIFSENIOR ADVISOR TO THE MINISTER OF ENERGYINDUSTRY & MINERAL RESOURCES ON SUSTAINABILITY AND CLIMATE POLICY, KSA

MODERATOR PANELISTS

KHALID MALIKCO-CHAIR, GLOBAL SUSTAINABILITY FORUM & FORMER DIRECTOR UNDP HUMAN DEVELOPMENT REPORT OFFICE, USA

DR. ENG. WADDAH AL HASHMIEXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, EHSSQ & CORPORATE AFFAIRSENOC GROUP, UAE

VICTOR VAN VUURENDIRECTOR INTERNATIONAL LABOUR ORGANISATION, GENEVA

ZOË KNIGHTMANAGING DIRECTOR & GLOBAL HEAD HSBC CLIMATE CHANGE CENTRE OF EXCELLENCE, UK

DR. FRANK RIJSBERMANDIRECTOR GENERAL GLOBAL GREEN GROWTH INSTITUTE, KOREA

PLENARY SESSION 1 1615

The panel started with a discussion on hydrocarbon-dependent economies and the need to make fossil fuel production more climate-friendly. Khalid Abuleif - Senior Advisor to Saudi Arabia’s Minister of Energy, Industry & Mineral Resources on Sustainability and Climate Policy - said the water–energy–food nexus was one of the biggest tests facing the Middle East.

“Being among the largest hydrocarbon users and considering the scarcity of water and food, it’s been a great challenge for the kingdom to come up with a sustainable development plan. But we managed to launch Vision 2030 that will bring together the climate goals and SDGs,” said Abuleif.

He added that fossil fuels will remain part of the energy mix for a long time and therefore climate change efforts should focus on limiting greenhouse gas emissions and bringing fossil fuels into the realms of sustainability through carbon capture, utilization and storage, for example,.

Corporate governance

When it comes to corporate governance, businesses are increasingly realising the environmental impact of their activities and are shifting their focus onto sustainable profitability.

“What we’ve seen with many organisations is that they’re moving away from the mind-set of compliance and more towards stewardship,” said Waddah Ghanem Al Hashmi, Executive Director of EHSSQ & Corporate Affairs at Emirates National Oil Company (ENOC) Group.

Even sectors such as oil and gas are reinventing themselves. ENOC Group, which operates over 100 petrol stations throughout the UAE, has placed solar panels on 14 of its stations and plans to power 48 new facilities with solar energy by 2020.

“The oil and gas sector has always been criticized for not being innovative or adventurous enough. But this is starting to change. There’s a real reinvention of business models and that’s very important for us,” said Al Hashmi. “Our energy and resource management program has brought us back millions of dollars in savings. It’s all about (creating a) sustainable business in the future.”

Green finance

Achieving Paris Agreement targets is expected to require significant investment - as much as $100 trillion over the next 15 years. “Unlocking this capital is going to be a huge challenge,” said Zoë Knight, Managing Director & Group Head at HSBC Centre of Sustainable Finance.

HSBC recently surveyed corporate issuer and investor attitudes to sustainable finance and found that globally almost two-thirds of investors want to increase their allocations toward the green economy. But barriers remain around disclosure on what “green” really means and finding projects that enables them to fulfil the green criteria.

“The incentives that need to be in place will come from the government and financial sector. If you look across the board, we’ve got the asset owner and asset manager community, but we’ve also got the insurers and banks all needing to unlock capital

IF YOU DON’T LOOK AFTER PEOPLE, THEY WON’T LOOK AFTER THE ENVIRONMENT OR ECONOMY

flows that are going to deliver the change,” Knight said.

Governments play a critical role in this area, not only by setting the climate change agenda, but also by creating financial regulations around allocated capital for the low-carbon economy.

France, as host of COP21, introduced the first mandatory climate-reporting law for institutional investors in 2015 as part of its energy-transition planning. The law is expected to drive investors and banks to be more transparent about how they’re financing low-carbon opportunities.

“This regulation is a milestone for the financial community because it enables us to move away from the abstract thinking of how the Paris deal might be implemented, to how we can disclose, track and monitor the financial flows. Many governments are thinking about how to replicate that model,” said Knight.

Holistic approach

Victor Van Vuuren, Director of the International Labour Organisation, said that when looking at successful examples of governments incorporating SDGs into their frameworks, it was important to look at cases that tackled social and environmental challenges.

“There are some 200 million unemployed people today, so governments that are looking at a singular, environmental driven policy are not the examples we’re looking for. It should be a holistic approach,” he said.

A major aspect of the green-economy transition is about employment and social inclusion, yet many jobs are going to be lost because they are unsustainable. For instance, a plan by the Philippines to shut down several mines will leave entire communities unemployed, according to Vuuren.

Khalid Malik, Co-chair of the Global Sustainability Forum and former Director of the UNDP Human Development Report Office, noted that while the Paris accords set the global framework for countries, the challenge now was to implement them.

“We found from our experience that if you don’t look after people, they won’t look after the environment or economy. Costa Rica is an interesting example - they decided to ask every ministry what they could do for sustainability and that led to a revolution in policy,” Malik explained.

“The country is now recognized as one of the most successful examples of (achieving) sustainability at very low levels of income, meaning you don’t necessarily have to be a high-income country to achieve your SDGs”.

PLENARY SESSION 1 PLENARY SESSION 1 1817

EMIRATES ENERGY AWARD

EMIRATES ENERGY AWARD

Under the visionary guidance of His Highness Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Vice President and Prime Minister of the UAE and Ruler of Dubai, the Dubai Supreme Council of Energy has set specific measures to enhance demand efficiency (water, power, and fuel transportation). The significant increase in the demand for energy consumption and its subsequent impact on the environment and economy in the region necessitated effective measures to improve energy efficiency and to diversify the energy mix in the region for sustainable growth.

To foster energy conservation and increase awareness, the Emirates Energy Award has been organized under the patronage of His Highness Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Vice President and Prime Minister of the UAE and Ruler of Dubai in its 3rd cycle under the theme “Innovative Solutions for Clean Energy” to recognise the best implemented practices in energy conservation that showcase innovation, cost effectiveness, and exemplary measures. Acknowledged practices and innovation shall manifest a positive impact in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region to steer energy awareness on a broad level across the different facets of society.

The award, which has been held every two years since 2012 is intended for a wide spectrum of best practices in energy and resource management to drive the following values which represent the evaluation criteria:1. Creativity & Innovation - in terms of demonstrated systems and processes influencing energy technologies and opportunities with potential for further development and transferability to others.

2. Energy Efficiency - representing reduction of specific energy consumption through general housekeeping measures, best practices, retrofitting inefficient equipment and new projects in the usage of energy.

3. Increase of Renewable Energy share in energy source portfolio - use of renewable energy such as solar, wind, biomass, biogas and other cleaner energy sources and gradual reduction of dependence on non-renewable energy sources.

4. Economic, Social & Environmental Impact - potential to deliver significant benefits including improvements in quality of life, cutting greenhouse gas emissions and supporting sustainable energy, in addition to building knowledge capacity and corporate social responsibility.

2017 Emirates Energy Award winners by catagory:

Large Energy Project1. Ortadogu Enerji, Turkey 2. Abu Dhabi Carbon Capture Company, UAE 3. Saudi Basic Industries Corporation (SABIC), KSA

Small Energy Project1. Mohammed Bin Rashid Space Centre, UAE 2. Izmit Waste and Residue Treatment Incineration and

Recovery Inc. (IZAYDAS), Turkey 3. Al-Jebrini Company for Dairy & Food Industries, Palestine

Energy Efficiency -Public Sector1. Moroccan Agency for Energy Efficiency ( AMEE ),

Morocco 2. Jordan Customs, Jordan 3. Abu Dhabi Gas Development Co. Ltd. (Al Hosn Gas), UAE

Energy Efficiency - Private Sector1. Emirates District Cooling (EMICOOL) LLC, UAE 2. Emaar Malls PJSC, UAE 3. Taka Energy Services LLC, UAE

Distributed Solar Generation Large Scale ≥ 500kW (Tie)1. Diamond Developers Co ltd, UAE 2. The Hashemite University, Jordan

Distributed Solar Generation Small Scale < 500kW1. Dr. Rebhi A. Damseh from Al-Balqa Applied University,

Jordan2. RAM Pharmaceutical Industries Co. Ltd, Jordan 3. Siraj Power Machinery and Equipment Leasing LLC., UAE

Education & Capacity Building1. Bethel Business and Community Development Centre,

Lesotho 2. Ms. Haya Ahmad Rateb Alaboushi from Al-Zaytoonah

University of Jordan, Jordan 3. Mishkat Interactive Center for Atomic and Renewable

Energy, KSA

Research & Development 1. ORBITAL SYSTEMS, Sweden 2. Abu Dhabi Future Energy Company, UAE 3. Majd Almashharawi, Palestine Young Professional Golden Award1. Soner Hacıhaliloglu, Turkey

EMIRATES ENERGY AWARD 2019

THE FUTURE OF SMART CITIES: THE NEXT STAGE OF URBAN EVOLUTION

PLENARY SESSION 2


Without data, smart cities cannot determine their targets or plan their next steps.

Governments can make huge savings by imple-menting smart city concepts – Dubai has saved $1 billion from public services since the inception of its smart city initiative.

Dubai’s smart city initiative began two decades ago.

Smart city planners should not get preoccu-pied with particular technologies; they should look at the bigger picture.

Once data is collected and refined, experts should be brought in to add intelligent think-ing to it, which in turn will create huge value for cities.

Governments should see ‘happiness’ as the main driver for their smart city projects.

PLENARY SESSION 2

AGENDA

Governments’ commitments to building more sustainable economy will involve creating smarter cities that lead the way in innovation, interconnected urban areas and eco-friendly infrastructure. Smart cities typically leverage technology to bolster economic performance and social wellbeing. Such cities benefit from numerous social and economic outcomes, including improved air quality, greater urban mobility and increased productivity.

This session brought together government and industry experts to discuss the most important components of smart cities and compared the costs of building new smart cities versus retrofitting existing urban areas.

DR. DAEYEON CHOEXECUTIVE DIRECTOR SMART CITIES BOARD, KOREA AGENCY FOR INFRASTRUCTURE TECHNOLOGY ADVANCEMENT, SOUTH KOREA

MODERATOR PANELISTS

OSMAN SULTANCEODU, UAE

NORMAN L. GILSDORFPRESIDENT, HONEYWELL, HIGH GROWTH REGIONS, MIDDLE EAST, TURKEY, RUSSIA & CENTRAL ASIA, UAE

YOUSEF AHMED BASELAIBEXECUTIVE DIRECTORSUSTAINABLE REAL ESTATE, MASDAR, UAE

AXEL THRELFALLEDITOR-AT-LARGE REUTERS, UK

2221

A common mistake smart city planners make is getting fixated with technology, which is a necessary component of smart city projects; but should not be the driver. Osman Sultan, CEO of Dubai-based telecom operator du, a Smart Dubai strategic partner, said it was easy to focus on technology for its own sake and forget that technology is a means to an end. “Happiness - that’s the biggest driver for the deployment of technology or anything smart we want to produce,” he said.

For Yousef Ahmed Baselaib - Executive Director of Masdar’s Sustainable Real Estate division - liveability, walkability, sustainability and efficiency are the main characteristics of a smart city and the focus of Masdar’s eco-city project.

“We’re focusing on building a city where people can live and work and enjoy their free time. We faced a lot of challenges at the beginning but we’re moving ahead with our vision and will start to get tenants by the end of this year,” he said.

Data is the fuel

Daeyeon Cho, Executive Director of Board of Smart Cities at the Korea Agency for Infrastructure Technology Advancement, said the first step when planning a smart city is to find out what the biggest problems were, and to focus on data, which he described as “the fuel for smart cities”.

Norman Gilsdorf - Honeywell President for High Growth Regions, Middle East, Turkey, Russia & Central Asia – said data is now a commodity.

“Data is the new oil; it is very valuable. It needs to be stored, transferred and shared. But most importantly, we need to refine data. We need to take data and have smart people bring intelligent thinking to it. That’s going to drive huge value in the future, whether for a building or a transport system”, Gilsdorf explained.

WE ACTUALLY FOUND QUITE A FEW OLD BUILDINGS IN DUBAI THAT PERFORMED AT THE TOP OF THE SMART BUILDING SCORE

DATA IS THE NEW OIL; IT IS VERY VALUABLE. IT NEEDS TO BE STORED, TRANSFERRED AND SHARED.

Data also needs to be properly classified so it can become information, and turned into knowledge through predictive analytics, Sultan noted. This knowledge would then serve to make the correct decisions on how to transform cities and help residents live in a more efficient and cost-effective way.

The other stakeholder is the city itself, because this data shows how the city is evolving.

Baselaib noted data was one of the most important factors in

Masdar’s work and without it the institution would be unable to determine targets or decide on its next actions.

Greener buildings

With up to 80 per cent of the UAE’s electricity consumed by buildings, moving to near zero-energy buildings to reduce consumption will be crucial. In fact, the UAE is looking to implement a new and improved eco-standard to make new and existing buildings greener and more efficient.

However, a 2016 survey by Honeywell, which looked at more than 600 buildings across the region including schools, hospitals, offices and airports, found there was no pattern among new and old in terms of energy efficiency. The buildings were assessed using the Honeywell Smart Building Score, which evaluates a building’s use of 15 technology assets to find out which systems are in place to make them green, safe and productive.

“It’s all in the mind-set of building owners and operators and what they want to set up. We actually found quite a few old buildings in Dubai that performed at the top of the Smart Building Score,” said Gilsdorf.

Sultan concluded that cities have the opportunity to make improvements and changes. “What excites us all is that we have an opportunity to do better for people to live happier.”


His Highness Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Vice President and Prime Minister of the UAE and Ruler of Dubai, officially opened the fourth edition of the World Green Economy Summit (WGES) on October 24, 2017, before attending the opening ceremony and touring the exhibition. HH Sheikh Mohammed was accompanied by Sheikh Hamdan Bin Mohammad Al Maktoum, Crown Prince of Dubai and Chairman of the Executive Council.

The opening ceremony was also attended by HE Saeed Mohammed Al Tayer, Vice Chairman of the Dubai Supreme Council of Energy, MD & CEO of Dubai Electricity and Water Authority (DEWA), and Chairman of WGES. In his welcoming note, Al Tayer said that the fourth edition of the Summit was based on the new theme of ‘Driving Innovation, Leading Change’, which was inspired by the vision of the UAE’s leadership.

“Innovation is a key theme for tomorrow’s world, which we strive to build on prosperity and happiness for future generations. During the two-day summit, we will discuss policies and strategies that promote investment in the green economy and support cooperation, technology and innovation. This will contribute to establishing dialogue, activating partnerships and exchanging experiences between countries, the public and private sector, financial institutions and civil society organizations around the world,” he said.

The UAE Centennial Plan 2071, which was launched in early 2017, is a unique turning point in the country’s journey towards becoming a global model of sustainability. Similarly, the UAE National Vision 2021 seeks to protect the environment and promote balance between economic and social progress by achieving sustainable development.

“In this context, the UAE Energy Plan 2050 aims to increase clean energy use in the country by 50 per cent, while Dubai Clean Energy Strategy aims to make the Dubai the city with the lowest carbon footprint in the world, with 75% of its capacity coming from clean energy sources by 2050,” said Al Tayer.Green finance is one of the five pillars underpinning the Dubai

Clean Energy Strategy, and DEWA has launched an AED 100 billion ($27.2 billion) Green Fund in 2015 to support clean energy investment.

“I’m delighted to announce that DEWA has entered into an agreement with National Bonds to launch the first AED 2.4 billion green fund that will have a Shariah-compliant arm. This is a testament to the UAE’s commitment to promote green finance. Furthermore, Dubai launched the World Green Economy Organisation (WGEO) in 2016, in cooperation with the UN Programme, to implement the global green economy agenda through collaboration, joint discussions and technical support,” said Al Tayer.

During the opening ceremony, WGEO launched the ‘Countries Platform’ and announced the membership of the UAE, South Korea and Italy to the organisation.

Sheikh Hamdan Bin Mohammad Al Maktoum honoured the representatives of the new member states: Silvia Velo, Undersecretary of State, Ministry for the Environment & Protection of Land and Sea (Italy), Sei-joong Kwon, Deputy Director-General of the Climate Change and Environmental Affairs Bureau, Korean Ministry of Foreign Affairs, (South Korea), and H.E. Dr Thani bin Ahmed Al Zeyoudi, Minister of Climate Change and Environment (UAE).

“The UAE has made great strides in the transition to a green economy based on an ambitious national vision, comprehensive strategic plans and an integrated program,” said Al Zeyoudi. “In the next phase, we will focus on implementing the initiatives of the national Green Agenda adopted by the UAE Cabinet in 2015 as a roadmap for achieving the Green Development Strategy. In addition, we will continue to work with our partners to develop and implement more projects to meet the objectives of the agenda within the established timeframe.”

Representing Italy, Velo said that its Ministry of Environment and Protection of Land & Sea has been at the forefront of implementing the UN’s 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.

OPENING CEREMONY

OPENING CEREMONY

She highlighted that the green economy has an important role in creating jobs and promoting investment, as well as restoring fair market conditions and achieving the inclusive transition the world needs.

“We have ambitious environmental and sustainable development goals - they are as ambitious as indispensable for us and our future generations. That’s why Italy is pleased to consider the invitation to join the WGEO as a founding member. We are also ready to work on a possible memorandum of bilateral cooperation in the field of climate change and environment,” said Velo.

On behalf of South Korea, Kwon said the WGEO’s newly launched Countries Platform will provide a solid foundation for the organisation’s development.

“The Republic of Korea joined this wonderful journey last May and we are ready to closely cooperate with WGEO to promote the vision of green growth. Korea has achieved several milestones towards a green economy. In 2013, we set green growth as a key national agenda across all the national policies by implementing a five-year plan. Currently, we’re implementing the second five-year plan for green growth,” said Kwon.

Under the Paris Agreement, Korea submitted a 2030 target of reducing greenhouse gas emissions by 37% from business-as-usual levels. Moreover, as part of its efforts to build a sustainable energy system and promote creative industries, the country established the 2050 energy strategy which encourages households and businesses to make voluntary investments in the next generation of renewable energy, storage systems and electric automobiles.

“To galvanize Korea’s transition towards a clean energy system, we decided to reduce our dependency on coal and nuclear power generation. Korea will exert its utmost effort to increase its renewable energy generation to 20% of the country’s electricity by 2040,” said Kown.

He added that Korea was closely cooperating with like-minded partners in championing the vision of global green growth. For example, it has maintained the Green Growth Alliance with Denmark since 2012 and has played a leading role in establishing the Global Green Growth Institute (GGGI) in Seoul.

As host country and key member of the GGGI, Korea contributes $10 million to the institute annually and provides support for its operation. Moreover, the country hosts a green climate fund which

is a major finance mechanism under the Paris Agreement for developing countries.

“There is no doubt the UAE has earned a reputation as a green growth hub in the Middle East with its vision and perspectives. Building on this, the UAE launched the WGEO with a view to expand its contribution to the green economy. The Republic of Korea greatly values this initiative. However, with light comes shadow,” Kown cautioned.

“One of the most challenging tasks will be to define the WGEO’s competitive advantage, which will differentiate it from other inter-governmental organisations. Korea has been there, we’ve overcome great difficulties in the process of developing the GGGI into an international organisation, and from this we learnt invaluable lessons. We stand to share our experience and cooperate closely with the UAE to help the WGEO to become an international organization with a unique business model and one that earns global recognition.”

Meanwhile, H.E. Aziz Rabbah, Minister of Energy, Mining and Sustainable Development in Morocco, said that his country has voluntarily chosen a sustainable development path by ratifying the national strategy for sustainable development. In addition, the government has launched a USD 4.6-billion natural gas project and competition has already started between international companies. Such mega projects have attracted numerous partners, investors and innovators to the kingdom.

“The energy sector occupies an important place in Morocco’s economy. Our plan is to invest about USD 40 billion by 2030 to develop the energy sector - especially renewable energies such as solar, wind and hydro – so that we can generate 42% of our installed power capacity from renewables by 2020 and 52% by 2030” Rabbah said.

With the rapid developments in the green economy and energy sector, the challenge today, particularly for developing nations is how to choose the most suitable technologies and solutions, he added.

“We believe that climate change offers an opportunity. So instead of talking about ‘climate change’, let’s talk about ‘climate chance’, because it is an opportunity for developing countries to gain a prominent place in the modern economy, especially the green economy.”

OPENING CEREMONY 2625

INNOVATION AND RENEWABLE ENERGY: THE NEXT GENERATION OF CLEAN ENERGY SOLUTIONS

PARALLEL SESSION 1A


A key, recurring challenge to increasing the adoption of renewable energy is energy storage to ensure continuous supply to end users – currently, storage capacity is expensive, but costs are declining as demand increases.

Over the next decade, solar energy production will expand, particularly for high-rise buildings, parking lots, and HVAC (Heating, ventilation, and air conditioning) solutions.

Economic and financial structures to bankroll renewable energy projects are just as important as the technological and engineering aspects of these projects.

Renewable energy has become more mainstream, putting it in direct competition with fossil fuels.

Clear policy, technology and investment are key elements in a good renewable energy deploy-ment strategy.

Engagement with the public when planning for and deploying renewable energy solutions can be significantly improved.

Clear government policy is crucial for all stakeholders.

Renewable energy technology development and innovation is rapid – governments and legislation must catch up.

PARALLEL SESSION 1A

AGENDA

Global appetite for renewable energy investments has grown significantly as production costs decline and efficiency increases. Governments are introducing incentive programmes, companies are opting for clean energy sources, and residential consumers are switching to solar. Yet renewable energy accounts for just 23% of total global electricity production, according to the World Energy Council. This session explored the latest trends and challenges in the market, highlighting opportunities to expand the renewable energy sector.

WALEED SALMANEVP BUSINESS DEVELOPMENT AND EXCELLENCEDUBAI ELECTRICITY AND WATER AUTHORITY (DEWA), UAE

MODERATOR PANELISTS

ALI AL JASSIMCEOETIHAD ENERGY SERVICES, UAE

YOUSIF AL ALIDIRECTOR OF BUSINESS GROWTH, MASDAR, UAE

DR. ANDREA LOVATO EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR & HEAD OF RENEWABLE ENERGY BUSINESS DEVELOPMENT, ACWA POWER, UAE

DR. MATT KENNEDYHEAD OF STRATEGY AND BUSINESS INTERNATIONAL ENERGY RESEARCH CENTRE, UK

2827

it’s very important for Etihad to be on top of things in terms of retrofit, in terms of solar,” said Al Jassim.

“When we talk about energy, it’s not only electricity and engineering, it also involves the economics, the finance, the technology in solar panels, and the technology in financing energy projects.”

Al Jassim said there are now more than 20 companies involved in retrofitting housing in Dubai, with over 2,000 units already having been retrofitted. He anticipated the number of retrofitting companies will soon increase to 40-50.

Calculated risk-taking

At Masdar, Abu Dhabi’s renewable energy and sustainability company, the focus is on experimentation with various technologies and platforms.

The sheer number of new and up-and-coming technologies to which Masdar has access means it must take an agnostic approach to its myriad research and development (R&D) work and pilot projects.

Yousif Al Ali, Director of Business Growth at Masdar, believes countries that possess the correct regulatory framework to enable renewable energy innovators to take calculated risks with technologies will stand to gain from such technologies should they succeed.

“Beside having a good [solar] radiation and regulatory framework, we also have good financial capabilities. The region can attract banks/lenders with very competitive rates,” he said.

This, he believes, gives the region a competitive edge in terms of allowing for robust R&D into renewable energy, eventually helping innovating institutions become competitive in their pricing model.“We ‘re always technology-agnostic, we don’t tie ourselves with a specific technology, yes we support the commercialisation of certain technologies by investing in pilot projects that we believe will be competitive in terms of their pricing future…if we find another technology can win, we are fine to go with that,” he added.

A 10-year outlook for renewables

Among renewable energy sources, solar and wind have hogged the limelight in terms of growth prospects, but battery storage technology will become increasingly important, the panel agreed.

“Battery [technology] definitely will come strong,” said Dr. Andrea Lovato, Executive Director & Head of Renewable Energy Business Development, ACWA Power, UAE. This will probably not be robust enough to handle the baseload of a Photovoltaic farm but sufficient to store 5-7 hours’ worth of energy, he said, adding this is where Concentrating Solar Power (CSP) technology might help bridge the gap in reliability, at least in the next 5-10 years.

Efficiency will remain a vital aspect of energy use, said Dr. Lovato, with conventional fossil fuel power plants benefitting, for example, from digitizing as much of their processes as possible.

DEWA’s Salman sees a significant investment going into energy storage solutions, particularly to scale up technologies to make them feasible and improve reliability.

Energy production is undergoing significant change, with widespread deployment of solar and wind energy, while policymakers globally have near-unanimously agreed to attempt to limit global temperature increases to 1.5C as per the 2015 Paris climate accords. Businesses are responding by deploying clean energy technologies. All these trends reflect an important period of de-carbonisation that promises to offer new business opportunities in areas such as energy storage, mass deployment of solar panels and concentrated solar power (CSP), biofuels and wind energy.

Strong leadership key to smooth renewables deployment

Waleed Salman, EVP Business and Development Excellence, Dubai Electricity and Water Authority (DEWA), described the three key elements of a good renewable energy deployment strategy: “Policy, technology and investment. In policy, what we need is leadership and vision to set the strategy.”

He explained there had been uncertainty and reticence in 2012 regarding the path ahead when H.E. Sheikh Mohammed Bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Ruler of Dubai, unveiled the emirate’s blueprint to achieve Green Economy status.

“Once you have the support of the leadership then you go ahead and set the policy and the regulation that will make it happen, because if you go and just try to implement [mass renewable energy production], the system will not support it.”

Attracting ‘green’ money

Speaking about the financing aspect, Salman said the financial sector would not be attracted to renewable energy projects if the legislative infrastructure for these projects was not in place. He highlighted how DEWA, together with Dubai’s government, successfully introduced the necessary legislation and policies, and garnered the involvement of the private sector and all other stakeholders in under a year.

He explained how such a holistic top-down approach to renewable energy systems deployment is helping set a benchmark for the UAE and the wider region.

Innovation not just about new technologies

Etihad Energy Services launched in 2013 as part of DEWA’s renewable energy policies following studies by the utility that identified at least 30,000 housing units in Dubai which required retrofitting with rooftop solar panels and small storage batteries. The retrofits promise to yield major savings for DEWA when implemented. Etihad Energy Services has been mandated to reduce the emirate’s energy consumption by 30% by 2030.

“We found there were no capable companies [in the market] to do the retrofitting and here comes the idea “ok let’s create a market” for us to achieve our target,” said Salman.

Etihad Energy Services CEO Ali Al Jassim highlighted the company’s involvement in retrofitting, district cooling, the Shams Dubai solar project, demand-side management, and measurement and verification (M&V) initiatives.

“When we talk about innovation, when we talk about technology,

PARALLEL SESSION 1A PARALLEL SESSION 1A 3029

THE EMERGENCE OF INNOVATIVE FINANCING SOLUTIONS FOR GREEN INITIATIVES

PARALLEL SESSION 1B


Data is the critical need for sustainable finance to be taken to scale.

The Lending Club and Prosper model where retail drive FinTech attracts institutional interest should be relevant to the future of green finance.

Finding and sharing success stories of huge returns from sustainable finance will help attract large inflows.

Ecosystem for development starts with small, higher-risk proof of concept efforts which then leads to bigger scale through aggregation which in turn sows the ground for banks and other institutional funding.

Develop regular data dissemination showing the risk and return performance of existing green finance products.

Promote research that demonstrates the diversification benefit from green finance products.

Create YieldCos for renewable energy project finance that to increase liquidity for investors.

Develop central bank programs that provide refinancing or other liquidity support for green project/YieldCos

PARALLEL SESSION 1B

AGENDA

The financial sector relies upon accurate, detailed data to price and provide financing, and “green finance” is no different. To develop sufficient data to support large-scale roll-out of green finance, innovators must first prove their commercial success on a small scale. Many of these green startups rely on smaller, more impact-focused investors to fund their proof-of-concept development phase before scaling up to commercial operations. The session outlines some of the policies and initiatives that can help bring green finance to the mainstream.

LARS KROIJERFOUNDER AND CEOALLIEDCROWDS, UK

MODERATOR PANELISTS

SAMY BEN-JAAFARDIRECTORGREEN FUND, UAE

SAM MANABERIFOUNDER & CEO TRINE, SWEDEN

ANTONY CURRIEASSOCIATE EDITOR REUTERS BREAKINGVIEWS, USA

3231

On the data issue, Ben-Jaafar pointed out how critical it is to achieving scale. Data is needed to guide financial institutions on risk, return, expected loss and the potential benefit for green projects to provide diversification to the loan book or financing portfolio. In order to generate the experimentation required to create the data, some innovators will need to take on higher risk and smaller projects in order to increase the project size using proven models that provide predictability for uncertainty-averse investors including banks.

This is one area where the Dubai Green Fund can play a role. In the rooftop solar market in Dubai, installations are growing by leaps and bounds. These can be aggregated together, and the Green Fund can warehouse the installed projects to aid new funding to new projects. This should spur enough scale for banks and ratings agencies to come into the market. No one agency alone can create the market, there is an important role for connecting many together to work towards a common outcome. In emerging markets, this process is slower than in developed markets but the process of evolution within the market is the same.

Manaberi suggested that the developments in emerging and developed markets are not entirely separate from one another and can potentially add value to one another through diversification. Investors, he noted, are searching for noncorrelated investment opportunities and the aggregation of tens of thousands of individuals such as those replacing their kerosene with solar power will result in returns that are not correlated with traditional financial instruments.

Kroijer agreed on the diversification angle suggesting that the low correlation in distributed renewable energy projects in emerging markets made it a perfect building block for a diversified portfolio, especially once there is data showing that this uncorrelated return holds up throughout the entire market cycle. He suggested that only when 100 people developed projects like Manaberi’s would there be enough data to make the sector appealing to investors.

Manaberi agreed and said that there was a risk to their approach but they have been careful in their trial and error so that the time, money and energy that they are investing will help to provide the investment case for the sector. Kroijer added that there are examples where these experiments and government incentives that support their development can create scale such as the UK’s feed-in-tariff, which provided a 7% return for investors backed by the government that they could turn into nearly risk-free returns by financing the installation of solar panels and shorting gilts. They didn’t necessarily come to the investment caring about the environment but saw a return and it resulted in a lot of new solar capacity being installed.

Similarly, Lending Club and Prosper initially started as retail-led platforms connecting borrowers and lenders, but have since been overtaken by institutional funds that have scaled them dramatically. What’s stopping these types of platforms from being developed in a way that they focus on sustainable investments and get the same type of scale? The main limitation is the data proving the investment case, which will come. Ben-Jaafar agreed and said that as the numbers emerge they will reflect what could be viewed as a ‘tax’ in the form of environmental externalities that directly or indirectly reduce future returns.

Opening the session, Antony Currie, Associate Editor at Reuters Breakingviews, highlighted the need for investment in sustainable infrastructure, which he estimated at about $100 trillion over the next decade. There is vast amounts of investable capital seeking a good home, while banks are looking at how to approach sustainable development. In terms of explicitly sustainable investment, there is a much narrower set of assets solely devoted to sustainability and much of it is invested in equities, which makes scale difficult to achieve.

To address a question about how to direct larger sources of investment capital towards sustainable investments, Lars Kroijer, Founder and CEO of AlliedCrowds, said that if you had two hedge funds portfolios with equal risk and return where one was green and one was invested in entirely fossil fuels, no one would avoid the green one. The reason for the lack of take-up of green investments, Kroijer suggested, is that there is a dearth of success stories and good data on the track record of these investments. Where is the green ‘Google’ or ‘Facebook’ to make people confident when investing in green technologies with other people’s money? If there were huge returns like those for investors in Google and Facebook, it would create large inflows.

Samy Ben-Jaafar, Director of the Dubai Green Fund, pointed out that renewable energy had grabbed most of the spotlight within the green economy. Yet sustainability is not only about renewables, which deal just with climate change mitigation. There are also opportunities in investments to mitigate risks from climate change. There is also a risk that investments today are based upon mispriced risk which under-recognizes the exposure of companies to climate change.

One of the failures, Ben-Jaafar suggested, lay with central banks, which could spark investment in green infrastructure in the same way they have promoted uptake in mortgage-backed securities. In the MBS market, central banks help banks invest in long-term investments by offering liquidity through programs such as quantitative easing. For green infrastructure, banks are being asked to lock up their capital for 25 years, which is untenable. If there were YieldCos developed and granted access to liquidity through existing quantitative easing programs, it would increase liquidity in green infrastructure and bring in new investors.

Kroijer said his platform, which operates in cooperation with the World Green Economy Organization, provides the type of data and connections needed to bring alternative capital investors and projects together across emerging markets. This example shows the potential for new technologies including machine learning to help connect investors and projects in search of funding.

Sam Manaberi said there were other examples where digital investment platforms connected investors with investment opportunities by offering positive returns and a tangible impact, for example those that finance replacing kerosene with solar power. This type of product, which his company TRINE offers, allows retail investors to start with just €25. Over the past 18 months, it has raised €2.2 million and cut carbon dioxide emissions by 56,000 tonnes. The next step after mobilizing retail investment for such projects is to increase their scale by using mainstream finance. The hardest part is not sourcing investment capital, but finding enough projects to finance.

PARALLEL SESSION 1B PARALLEL SESSION 1B 3433

LEVERAGING PUBLIC POLICY TOOLS TO DRIVE GREEN ECONOMY GROWTH


Public policymaking to achieve Green Economy targets requires a ‘carrot and stick approach’ i.e. incentivising initiatives such as subsidies for using renewable energies and sustainable practices, while taxing or otherwise penalising environmentally damaging actions.

Fossil fuel-dependent countries such as the UAE will likely face mainly internal resistance in attempts to decarbonise their economies.

Denmark’s example of using both subsidies and high taxes over a span of decades tointroduce more sustainable practices and sources of renewable energy shows public mindsets can be changed.

It is extremely important to decouple politics and changes of government from green/sus-tainable development.

The narrative around climate change needs to be more engaging to the public and therefore more impactful.

Money talks: if consumers see their energy costs decline they are more likely to support green economy initiatives.

Real-world large-scale pilot projects of green economies offer powerful models for replication elsewhere.

Removing fossil fuel subsidies will show societies their true cost.

PARALLEL SESSION 2A

AGENDA

Green growth stems largely from good public policies; markets alone have been inadequate in addressing climate change. Various policy instruments can encourage making reductions in CO2 emissions and promote environmental sustainability. Such mechanisms include introducing environmental taxation, pricing the use of scarce natural resources and pollution, and reforming inefficient subsidies. However, no single blueprint exists for sustainable development. Policymakers must design and implement plans based on their countries’ national circumstances and levels of development, as well as production and consumption activities.

ADNAN MERHABAPRINCIPALARTHUR D. LITTLE, UAE

MODERATOR PANELISTS

FINN MORTENSENEXECUTIVE DIRECTOR STATE OF GREEN, DENMARK

HUSSAIN KHANSAHEBDIRECTOR OF INTERNATIONAL COOPERATION DEPARTMENT MINISTRY OF CLIMATE CHANGE AND ENVIRONMENT, UAE

SANG-HYUP KIMCHAIRMAN COALITION FOR OUR COMMON FUTURE, SOUTH KOREA

REBECCA MCLAUGHLIN-DUANEPRESENTER EVENT HOST & MEDIA TRAINER, UAE

PARALLEL SESSION 2A 3635

He cited the example of Jeju Island, the largest island off the Korean peninsula, with a population of some 750,000 inhabitants and 350,000 vehicles. The island set to become totally carbon-neutral by 2030 by generating all its electricity from renewable sources. There are plans to replace all vehicles on the island with electric ones.

“To support this mega-transformation, a huge installation of energy storage systems is now going on,” said Kim.

The perils of climate change now grip much of the world’s population like never before.

Critics would say that government policies and decision makers have been too slow to acknowledge that human activity is accelerating changes in global climate patterns.

Not all governments are the same, however, and some have made a head-start in recognising their environmental footprint and launching initiatives to reduce it.

Sweden is one of those countries. It was the first nation to establish an environmental protection agency, in the late 1960s, and the first to incorporate a carbon tax, in the early 1990s.

Today, Sweden generates nearly 60 percent of its electricity from renewable sources – the highest in the European Union.

Scandinavian secret or just common sense?

Sweden’s environmental protection efforts are not unique; neighbouring Nordic countries such as Norway and Denmark have also been pace-setters over the past 40-50 years.

“In Denmark it started in the early 1970s during the first oil crisis, because Denmark was totally dependent on imported oil, we did not have any natural resources” explained Finn Mortensen, Executive Director of Denmark’s State of Green.

“Denmark was severely affected and the government and parliament simply had to come up with a new energy course. They decided to focus on renewables and on energy efficiency.”

It was clear a ‘carrot and stick’ approach was required, said Mortensen: the stick being high taxes on all kinds of energy consumption, the carrot being economic subsidies for private households that installed better insulation and new windows. Companies that cut their energy consumption also benefitted.Denmark’s then-nascent wind industry received massive subsidies, which helped turn the country into a world leader in wind turbines.

“It’s a decades-long constant focus on renewables, on energy efficiency and also changing the mindset of the ordinary Dane that energy, in all kinds, as well as water, is a scarce resource” concluded Mortensen.

Leading by example: A Korean perspective

Sang-Hyup Kim, Chairman of South Korea’s Coalition For Our Common Future, revealed how his highly industrialised country is reducing its environmental footprint.

The island piloted the world’s largest smart-grid, which has acted as an enabler for various components of a carbon-free economy to come together and work in an interoperable manner.

“The basic idea is to create a new industrial ecosystem by linking all these things together,” said Kim.

“It’s a small step but we’re making progress by having that kind of bankable, replicable and scalable project,” he said, adding that studies have shown the Jeju Island model could be replicated in more than 2,000 cities worldwide.

The UAE’s ‘carrot’ approach

Hussain Khansaheb, Director of International Cooperation Department, UAE Ministry of Climate Change and Environment, elaborated on the country’s transition to a green economy.

“One of the goals is to increase the recycling percentage of waste up to 75%, but so far we don’t have any waste fees so we are working on that by incentives,” he said.

Khansaheb highlighted how Dubai has targeted becoming a city with the world’s smallest carbon footprint.

“In the 1960s we were just a [fossil] fuel consuming country, we were depending 100% on fossil fuels,” he said. “Now … it is not the time to enforce taxes onto people but we believe that by [using] incentives, it will shift [mindsets].”

Hearts and minds and political stability

The Danish example of widespread public acceptance of top-down green policies is a laudable model, but also needs to be contextualised to be fully appreciated.

Recalling the hardships during the 1970s oil crisis, Mortensen emphasised that failure to secure alternative energy sources was not an option.

TODAY, SWEDEN GENERATES NEARLY 60 PERCENT OF ITS ELECTRICITY FROM RENEWABLE SOURCES – THE HIGHEST IN THE EUROPEAN UNION

IT’S EXTREMELY IMPORTANT TO BE ABLE TO DECOUPLE YOUR POLICIES RELATED TO DECARBONISING OR CLIMATE CHANGE FROM THE POLITICS OF THE COUNTRY

PARALLEL SESSION 2A

“We had to find a new way to create and secure a stable energy supply one way or another. One of the stronger rules of the Danish system is that when it comes to regulation, we have a decades-long tradition in Denmark for broad political agreements when it comes to taxation, housing, schooling, and energy.

“Any energy agreement will still stand even if there is a change in government because the opposition has signed onto it and there’s a mutual agreement that if you want to change one of these broad agreements, everybody should agree,” Mortensen said.

Denmark’s political stability paved the way for far-reaching energy agreements, which in turn enabled renewable energy development.

“It’s extremely important to be able to decouple your policies related to decarbonising or climate change from the politics of the country”, said Adnan Merhaba, Principal, Arthur D. Little in the UAE. “As the rise of nationalism spreads across the world, the risk of regressing back on some of these policies go up”.

He suggested ring-fencing national environmental policies by institutionalising them to guard against political uncertainties.

The optics of climate change

Merhaba acknowledged that winning the hearts and minds of the public is no easy task, and it’s a challenge he believes is made more difficult by poor messaging from climate change advocates and policymakers.

“The first thing that you think of when you think of climate change…is melting Polar ice caps – it doesn’t connect with people, it’s too remote for most of the people” he warned.


CORPORATES AND SUSTAINABILITY: THE NEW AGENTS OF CHANGE


Companies are planning their sustainability strategy decades into the future.

Public perception about the sustainability and climate alignment of a company’s product may matter as much as its actual sustainability attributes and businesses should plan accord-ingly.

Even companies with sustainable products have to examine their supply chain for unsus-tainable activities that will be of concern to their end users.

Integration of new technologies or new distri-bution techniques have to manage the imple-mentation strategy as well as ensure they are using good technology.

Government should examine what changes to the electricity markets are needed to expand renewable energy production including power from independent producers.

Large corporates should take a long-term look at how changes will change their business and make near-term investments in the adaptions these changes require.

When planning their sustainability strategies, companies should look both at their ownproduction processes and those of their suppliers.

Governments should develop strategies to use renewable capacity to ease the challenge of reforming energy subsidies.

Utilities should examine how they could compete if energy markets were liberalized and start adapting their businesses accordingly.

PARALLEL SESSION 2B

AGENDA

Corporate planning operates on a timescale spanning several years, sometimes decades, so incorporating sustainability into such plans is an imperative for companies in order to mitigate regulatory, transition and physical risks created by climate change.

As businesses develop strategies to deal with climate change, they must look across their operations and beyond to also examine their supply chains.

The rapid pace of technological development poses a challenge to sustainability-based strategic planning, making such preparations an ongoing process rather than one-time event. Successful strategies to address sustainability issues can provide strong reputational, competitive and risk management benefits.

DARRIN MORGANDIRECTOR BOEING, UAE

MODERATOR PANELISTS

DR. MATT KENNEDYHEAD OF STRATEGY AND BUSINESS INTERNATIONAL ENERGY RESEARCH CENTRE, UK

AHMED NADAVP OF BUSINESS DEVELOPMENTFIRST SOLAR, UAE

ANTONY CURRIEASSOCIATE EDITOR, REUTERS BREAKINGVIEWS, USA

PARALLEL SESSION 2B 4039

manufacturing. The entire solar industry now is spending $250 – 260 million on R&D annually and First Solar represents $120 million of that total, giving them an opportunity to go to suppliers and change their mentality. Some have faltered but most have been receptive and it has benefitted the industry.

The final sector in focus on the panel was electricity markets, with Dr. Matt Kennedy, Head of Strategy and business at the International Energy Research Centre, noting that some electricity markets have not seen changes to their core economic model in 100 years. Utilities are under pressure and facing market share loss because of new changes in the industry that allow disrupters and SMEs to develop new technology that helps them gain share from the utilities.

Utilities are faced with an uncomfortable choice between business-as-usual and trying to weather the storm or adapting to the new change and many are choosing the latter. Some utilities are adapting by launching solar PV businesses, forming joint ventures to develop wind farms, purchasing battery storage technologies and undertaking other attempts to become more diversified. It is a reaction to the fact that their market is undergoing rapid transformation.

Utilities are looking for new revenue and new customers, which will come from sources such as transportation electrification. In order to match this new demand with the generating capacity of renewables including wind and solar, utilities are exploring implementing time-of-use pricing. There is some role for electric vehicles as storage but it creates issues where the substation may not know what the network conditions are likely to be. It all relates to efforts for energy arbitrage and moving power usage to night from day to integrate non-fossil fuel sources.

Nada added that regionally renewables are competitive even with subsidized fossil fuel energy generation and that solar tends to be more predictable in terms of electricity generation than wind in the Middle East. There will be a positive impact from this new renewable deployment including economically through allowing greater subsidy reform, however some countries have different needs in terms of changing electricity laws to allow for private producers which is new for the region.

Dr. Kennedy detailed Ireland’s experiences of reforming its water pricing system, with the country formerly among the few in Europe not to charge users for their water. It failed because it was associated with a public perception issue around restricting the right of people to have access to water. It was also implemented during a difficult period when Ireland was still part of the IMF program and people were being taxed heavily as a result. The learning experience for other countries is that you can have a situation where the population is willing to pay for something and still fail on the political strategy around implementation.

Nada added that the economics were in place to shift to renewables and it could help alleviate situations where large oil exporters are reliant upon imported diesel because of limited refining capacity relative to demand growth. By installing solar capacity instead of paying market price for diesel to generate subsidized electricity, it can free up government resources for other purposes. The ecosystem around renewable energy is also improving and banks are becoming more comfortable financing projects, especially those where offtakers have sovereign guarantees.

Setting the stage for panel, Darrin Morgan, a Director at Boeing answered a question from Antony Currie, Associate Editor at Reuters Breakingviews about what corporations can do to help with climate change. Morgan explained using an example at Boeing where they started a program a decade ago to develop sustainable fuels. The long time frame that investments need fit with the company’s overall corporate planning, which requires it to make decisions with a decades-long time horizon, far longer than most corporations.

For Boeing, Morgan explained, they identified three things that were important drivers: 1) they would need liquid fuels for a long time; 2) these fuels have to be aligned with their strategic needs of moving away from fossil fuels; and 3) aviation is perceived as having a bigger impact on climate change than it does in reality but they recognize that perceptions shape behavior and they have to address these perceptions in their future decisions.

Boeing realized it had to be active itself in sustainable fuels because it didn’t make sense for suppliers to develop sustainable fuels that compete with their products because jet fuel is not a core part of their business. In addition, the future of oil is shifting towards heavy crude which is more difficult and expensive to refine into jet fuel. This makes the future cost curve for sustainable fuels more attractive.

Along the way, there have been challenges such as the emergence and bursting of a bubble in biogenic fuels. Boeing had set a goal to reach 1% of their fuel demand from renewable by 2015 which was missed but they will reach 3% in 2018, which made the missed target more about timing than substance. When Boeing approached the development of sustainable fuels, the strategic focus was on financeable, repeatable innovations recognizing that the first few percentage points of adoption are the hardest and then the market mechanism kicks in to support further growth.

When asked about the development of battery technology, Morgan shared that Boeing had invested in both battery technology and hybrid airplanes. When approaching this investment, the challenge is mostly connected to the extra weight that batteries add, so the hybrid approach uses batteries for takeoff and then liquid fuels for cruising. The technology is still in its early stages and will be a further 10-20 years in development. Beyond a hybrid airplane, there are no realistic plans to manufacture a fully electric jet.

Addressing the question about what corporations can do for climate change, Ahmed Nada, VP of Business Development at First Solar, explained that the changes in the underlying product economics for solar had made it cost competitive in the region. What once may have been thought impossible is now happening and further innovation will lower the levelized cost of energy (LCOE). For solar, economics and technology are in alignment and First Solar is focused on eco-friendly research and development to make the manufacturing process for solar panels less carbon dioxide- and water-intensive compared to competitors and current technologies.

The driver for this shift in focus up the supply chain for sustainability is driven by end user demand who are concerned not just in generating renewable energy but also in having a supply footprint that is ecologically friendly. A benefit from this focus is that for the producers, there are long-term advantages from the process development that accompanies a focus on sustainable


YOUTH DIALOGUE - GOING GREEN: PRACTICAL OR UNREALISTIC FOR TODAY’S YOUTH?

YOUTH DIALOGUE


Small lifestyle changes can have a huge impact in the longer-term, changing entire commu-nities as more and more people and organi-sations see the benefits and adopt the same practices.

There aren’t enough options for young people in the UAE to lead greener lifestyles – for example, sustainable clothing lines are limited, electric vehicle charging stations are not widely available, and carrying reusable water bottles and shopping bags need to become “cool”.

Youth are more likely to connect with young influencers and leaders than those from older generations.

While the UAE has many social media influencers and fashionistas, it lacks environmental ambas-sadors/influencers who can motivate young people and show them how to lead greener lifestyles.

More effort is needed to connect young people with nature, so they can see first-hand climate change’s impact on the environment.

Sustainability champions must be recognized and their efforts need to be made more visible.

Expeditions to places that are critically imperilled by climate change can help increase youth awareness and transfer knowledge to their local communities.

Dubai residents should consider buying electric cars, especially as DEWA is offering free EV charging until the end of 2019.

Sustainability courses should be embedded in every subject of school and university curriculums. Parents also need to be educated to ensure consistency between home and school.

The Ministry of Climate Change can initiate a 30-day environmental challenge similar to the Dubai Fitness Challenge, possibly in collaboration with the Ministry of Youth Affairs or Emirates Youth Council, to encourage residents to adopt greener lifestyles.

YOUTH DIALOGUE

AGENDA

The surge in the global youth population could radically change economies as the next generation of innovators, entrepreneurs and environmental ambassadors make their mark. There are nearly 1.8 billion people aged 10-24 worldwide, according to UN statistics.

Tech-savvy and naturally inclined towards a greener lifestyle, today’s youth feel that protecting the environment is more important than economic gain, according to the Masdar Gen Z Global Sustainability Survey. Moreover, various surveys show that young people have immense purchasing power and are driving consumer growth in their respective countries. How can governments benefit from this opportunity and leverage the power of youth to lead the global transition to a green economy?

NOURA ALHAMMADIR&D TECHNOLOGIST DUBAI ELECTRICITY & WATER AUTHORITY RESEARCH & DEVELOPMENT CENTER, UAE

KEYNOTE SPEAKER

MODERATOR

PANELISTS

LAILA MOSTAFA ABDULLATIFDIRECTOR GENERAL AT EMIRATES WILDLIFE SOCIETYWWF, UAE

SIMON BUSHELLCO-FOUNDER AND CEO SYMPOWER, NETHERLANDS

KHALID AL AMERICOLUMNIST THE NATIONAL, UAE

HE SAEED MOHAMMED AL TAYERVICE CHAIRMAN OF THE DUBAI SUPREME COUNCIL OF ENERGY, MD & CEO OF DUBAI ELECTRICITY AND WATER AUTHORITY (DEWA), AND CHAIRMAN OF WGES, UAE

4443

to lead greener lifestyles, Bushell noted that first step was to give them more options. “A lot of people want to make better choices. For example, they want to buy eco-friendly clothing, but if you walk into your average clothes shop you’ll be lucky if you find one line of sustainable clothing.”

Lifestyle changes such as switching to reusable shopping bags and water bottles are some of the easiest ways young people could live more sustainably, Flaherty said.

“Going sustainable does not have to involve expensive or high-tech gadgets. It could be as simple as using refillable water bottles. The water we get from DEWA is clean drinking water; you just have to install a filter system in your house. You don’t need to use plastic bottles,” said Shaima Al Hammadi, Engineer for Special Projects at DEWA.

Hamad Rajab, Assistant Manager for Advanced Metering Infrastructure and Smart Grid Services at DEWA, said that youth in the UAE will soon have more choices. For instance, DEWA plans to increase the number of electric vehicle charging stations from 62 to 200 and has introduced incentives to encourage drivers to switch to green cars.

“We’ve launched a huge campaign to offer free EV charging, so we’re telling the public “buy an electric car and you’ll get free charging until the end of 2019”. That’s one way the government is giving society choices. People can also turn off their AC when they’re out instead of letting it run the whole time,” Rajab said.

Noura Alhammadi, R&D Technologist at DEWA, suggested young people could prioritise sustainable brands. “You can choose the companies you buy your products from, because it’s your choice.” Residents can also install solar panels on their homes and generate clean power through DEWA’s Shams Dubai program, she added.

Influencers needed

In the meantime, societies should make more effort to recognise unsung heroes championing sustainability, and whose efforts usually go unnoticed.

“There are two types of influencers – those who are out there on social media, whose face is visible to the world, and those who are in the shadows. We as engineers are directly influencing the environment and promoting sustainability,” said Muhammad Saad Masood, project manager at BGreen Pakistan and member of the Solar Decathlon Middle East.

DEWA’s Climate Change Ambassadors is a great example of how youth can influence their communities when shown the effects of climate change. The program sends DEWA staff on exploratory missions to biologically diverse places around the world, where they witness the impact of global warming and then share their experiences upon their return.

“I was part of DEWA’s Climate Change Ambassadors program, and this year we went to Tanzania. Many parts of the world are currently experiencing the impact of climate change. By going on these expeditions, we can transfer knowledge to our communities and show them they need to change their lifestyle before they are affected too,” said Fouad Al Muhairi, Engineer at DEWA.

The participants agreed that young influencers were more likely to

The Youth Dialogue enjoyed a broad participation of young people from across the public and private sectors, including representatives from DEWA, Masdar, Expo 2020, Dubai Police, Community Development Authority of Dubai, Ministry of Climate Change & Environment, and Ministry of Interior, as well as university students from many disciplines.

The panel started by highlighting the detrimental effects environmental degradation is having on our planet. Using visuals and statistics, Laila Abdullatif, Director General at Emirates Wildlife Society-WWF, explained that humanity was at a climate change crossroads.

“If we continue consuming resources at the current rate, it means we will require over 1.7 planets to sustain our way of life. We have very high rates of energy and water consumption, food wastage, and over-reliance on plastics, so we’re really pushing beyond our environmental limits,” she warned.

Connecting with nature

As a non-governmental organization (NGO), Emirates Wildlife Society (EWS) in association with the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) carries out various conservation initiatives to protect the UAE’s environment and biodiversity. It also runs educational programs beyond the classroom to connect young people with nature so that they understand the environment’s importance.

Hiba Al-Shehhi, a biologist at the Ministry of Climate Change and Environment, said the biggest problem today was that society is disconnected from nature. If young people learned to love the earth and its species, they would become more passionate about the environment.

“We are a generation that hasn’t grown up going to the sea and learning about the species in our oceans. We grew up going to the malls and being on our laptops. So how do you expect people to protect something they’re not attached to and have never seen?” said Al-Shehhi.

Moza Al Naimi, Masdar Institute Phd student, noted that sustainability was not something new to the UAE. “Our grandparents sustained (themselves in) a very harsh environment without water. They practiced sustainability for hundreds of years throughout the desert, so the new generation should connect to their roots.”

Trickle-down effect

Speaking about the extent to which youth can drive change, Alison Flaherty, Research and Learning Programme Manager at EWS-WWF, said that individual efforts could make a huge difference. “Small changes trickle down to your friends, colleagues and up or down organizations. They have large impacts over time. It’s up to you to start that discussion.”

Simon Bushell, Co-founder and chief executive of Netherlands-based Sympower, noted that small lifestyle changes spark the curiosity of people around us and eventually lead to widespread adoption. “If each one of us reduced their carbon footprint by 1%, then we will have reduced the world’s carbon emissions by 1%,” he explained.

When asked about what could be done to encourage young people

YOUTH DIALOGUE

inspire youth. “When I see someone from my generation leading an initiative, I prefer to follow them because there’s no generational gap,” said Abeeha Fatima, a student at SZABIST University.

Bushell said youth should also have a voice in decision-making and a “seat at the table”. On this note, Samar Gewily, a chemist and ecologist at Dubai Police, said that when she first took up her position there was little environmental work being done. This prompted her to join Dubai Police’s youth council and pitch an idea for a sustainability program. In less than a month, her idea was approved, the only one of 45 proposals to get the go-ahead.

Action plan

Concluding the discussion, Khalid Al Ameri, a columnist at The National and moderator of the Youth Dialogue, recommended creating an action plan for the audience, proposing they reach out to the Ministry of Climate Change to request a 30-day campaign similar to the Dubai Fitness Challenge.

“Let’s all come together in our respective departments and reach out to the Ministry of Climate Change on social media,” said Al Ameri. “We’ll propose a massive environmental campaign to encourage every individual to take action.”

The Dubai Fitness Challenge was launched in October 2017 to make Dubai the most active city in the world, encouraging residents to commit to 30 minutes of exercise for 30 days.

“They made it 30 days because they want to make it a habit. We want the same thing in sustainability, because the fitness challenge has really taken off. A large percentage of those who took part in the fitness challenge will probably continue to exercise after the campaign,” added Al Ameri.

Arwa Aljunaibi, a student from the University of Sharjah, suggested a collaboration between the Ministry of Climate Change and the Ministry of Youth Affairs. “The Ministry of Youth has good connections with youth in the UAE and has been driving big initiatives over the past few years. Why don’t both Ministries establish a long-term collaboration?”

YOUTH DIALOGUE 4645

D A Y T W O

GREEN FINANCE: THE ROLE OF THE FINANCIAL SECTOR IN THE GREEN ECONOMIC TRANSFORMATION

PLENARY SESSION 3

SUMMARY

Technological improvements have transformed the global market for green finance over the past five years.

Capital markets have demonstrated the potential to scale green finance, with the growth in “green” bonds, but these remain small relative to the value of investments required.

Investors and policymakers still face significant uncertainty about total investment require-ments to limit climate change because of weak disclosure of climate risk by corporations.

Capital rules have not been a big barrier to green finance, but liquidity rules have increased financing costs for some banks’ renewable project finance.

RECOMMENDATIONS

Corporations should be shifted towards man-datory disclosure of their climate risks and should be required to disclose how they plan to mitigate the physical, liability and transi-tion risks from climate change.

Governments, international organizations and standard-setting bodies should develop common impact-measurement and planning tools for companies to make commitments that align with low-carbon economy goals for 2050.

Financial institutions should explore how to use FinTech to make their involvement in the green financial system more inclusive.

Governments should provide policy and regulatory support to deepen capital markets to support and complement the banking system’s financing of renewable energy projects.

PLENARY SESSION 3

AGENDA

In order to make sustainability practices embedded across the public and private sectors, the financial industry should help mobilize funding for near-term projects that can have long-term sustainability impact.

In the past, the green economy was viewed as either “nice to have” or something that could be relegated to the corporate social responsibility agenda, but times are changing. As the technology powering the green economy proves its commercial viability, financial institutions risk being left out of a vitally important – and profitable - growth sector.

ROBERT TODDGLOBAL HEAD RENEWABLES AND CLEANTECHHSBC, UK

KEYNOTE SPEAKER

MODERATOR

PANELISTS

JAMES GRABERTDIRECTOR - SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT MECHANISMS, UNFCC, GERMANY

PROF. VALERIO DE LUCAEXECUTIVE CHAIRMAN THE INTERNATIONAL ACADEMY FOR ECONOMIC AND SOCIAL DEVELOPMENT, ITALY

FRANK BECKERSHEAD OF PROJECT FINANCE & ADVISORYFIRST ABU DHABI BANK, UAE

ANTONY CURRIEASSOCIATE EDITOR, REUTERS BREAKINGVIEWS, USA

HAJIR NAGHDYSENIOR MANAGING DIRECTORMACQUARIE GROUP HEAD OF MACQUARIE CAPITAL, ASIA & THE MIDDLE EAST, AUSTRALIA

5049

inhibit the flow of capital to these projects.

Grabert said institutions should be mandated to disclose the risks they face from climate change.

Prof. Valario de Luca said the transition to a green economy required raising awareness and changing the culture within financial institutions. The alignment between private and public sector should be increased through policy action. This may require some flexibility in the interpretation of standards around green finance, but FinTech can be a tool in supporting the development and deployment of new green finance structures. He also reminded the audience that technology is a neutral tool and must be applied in a way that meets green finance goals.

In terms of combining the scale of finance required and increasing public involvement in financing green projects, the MENA region may be well placed to develop faster versus Europe, according to Beckers. While Europe started small-scale with new renewable energy capacity and only later began to add large-scale projects that could attract bank and institutional capital, the MENA region has started with large projects. These are the types of projects which can justify bond issuance and build market capacity for green finance.

Grabert reiterated the need for more disclosure on climate risk, pointing to the newly announced task force on Climate-related Financial Disclosures which are voluntary but will likely become mandatory. All corporations, he stated, should link their disclosures on climate risk to their contribution towards the 2050 low-carbon economy goals. The IFCCC is currently working with ISO to develop a standard for impact measurement, but national governments must also be involved in creating a common, global set of tools.

Opening the session, Hajir Naghdy framed the discussion by noting that while there was no greater global challenge than climate change, this also represents the biggest opportunity, and companies such as Macquarie can play a critical role. The shift towards a green economy, led by utilities like DEWA which are increasing the share of renewable energy in their power mix, is bringing the sector out of its infancy. Across Europe and Asia, new funds are being set up and governments are establishing green investment banks, which is a marked improvement versus five years ago when green projects had trouble accessing funding.

Some green technologies including offshore wind and waste-to-energy are increasingly competitive, achieving a levelized cost of energy (LCOE) equal or lower than conventional sources. Over the last 10 years, renewable energy capacity has increased from 989 MW, doubling to almost 2 GW, some of which has been funded by the green bond market, which saw $81 billion in new issuance in 2016.

The investment community is now better able to understand pricing structures, enabling it to participate in the renewable energy sector; tens of billions of dollars have been invested in green power. There remains much to do, however, including attracting more specialist, committed investors to push the frontiers of investible technology.

These efforts are needed as the push to decarbonize economies intensifies and new policies are introduced to support this transition. In 5-10 years, there should be no need for renewable energy subsidies, which is great news for governments but less so for investors.

Declining production costs will increase the predominance of renewable energy, particularly as battery technology improves to tackle issues of intermittency in renewable energy. The shift towards renewable power will lead to a decentralized, distributed grid.

Following Naghdy’s remarks, Frank Beckers, Head of Project Finance and Advisory at First Abu Dhabi Bank, said his company had been involved in renewable energy for a long time and has been providing financing for large-scale renewable projects. The bank has been less able to finance smaller projects but has started to see opportunities where new financial products can be developed to support these smaller projects.

Robert Todd, Global Head of Renewables and Cleantech at HSBC, said his bank has a huge diversity of customers in the renewable energy sector worldwide. Capital adequacy rules introduced since the global financial crisis haven’t proved a hinderance and the bank has been able to support projects across the globe.

Beckers added to this point saying that capital rules were not the barrier but there was an issue with financing long-term projects because of pressure on the borrower to refinance in 5-7 years. This pressure for refinancing is driven by capital rules and large liquidity costs for long-term financing.

James Grabert, Director – Sustainable Development Mechanisms at UNFCCC - contrasted the $81 billion of green bond issuance annually with the $10 billion of bonds issued daily. To reach the Paris Agreement goals, the market needs massive scale up, he said. There needs to be action at a national level working towards the nationally-determined contributions (NDCs) and then down to the project level to discover whether there are policy frameworks that

THE TRANSITION TO A GREEN ECONOMY REQUIRED RAISING AWARENESS AND CHANGING THE CULTURE WITHIN FINANCIAL INSTITUTIONS


GREEN TALK

The world is now more connected than ever through the Internet and highly affordable travel. This has brought communities from different corners of the globe intimately closer together in ways our ancestors could have hardly imagined. Such interactions would ideally foster empathy and a collective responsibility for each other’s wellbeing,.

This has tangible consequences for the environment, argued environmentalist-adventurer, David De Rothschild. Speaking at the World Green Economy Summit in Dubai, the United Nations ‘Climate Hero’ spoke about how amid the hyper-connectivity the world now enjoys a persistent lack of empathy and therefore meaningful conversations on finding actionable solutions to dealing with climate change, pollution and sustainable living.

“We’re facing a ‘nature emergency’, but we’re not connecting, we’re not finding it in ourselves to actually move the needle forward to find solutions” said De Rothschild.

“What stops us from reacting? The first thing that stops us is that we think nature is outside of us – we’ve created this false dichotomy that nature is on one side and we’re on the other – (and) as we become more hyper-connected, we become more hyper-disconnected to nature. We all do it – we sit there with our phones, we look at nature on TV and then we switch off”.

“We never see ourselves as part of the [natural] system,” said De Rothschild who, in 2010, made headlines after successfully crossing the Pacific Ocean in a catamaran named ‘Plastiki’, a reference to the 12,500 reclaimed plastic bottles used to build it to alert the world to the detrimental environmental effects of single-use plastics.

He admits well-intentioned publicity stunts like Plastiki have their limits. The boat did little more than generate a temporary media buzz around. It didn’t reduce the amount of plastic in our oceans.

De Rothschild also takes aim at the social-media-driven phenomenon known as ‘slacktivisim’ where users simply ‘Like’

an important environmental issue at the click of a mouse button rather than doing anything.

“How do we become activists, how do we stay engaged, how do we stay motivated? We need to find more internal emotional intelligence than just the technological intelligence, we need more empathy.”

Redefining economic success

De Rothschild challenged the international audience of governmental and private industry decision-makers, activists and change-makers gathered at WGES to revise the definition of the conventional markers of economic performance and development such as Return on Investment and GDP to ‘Return on Impact’ and ‘Grossly Deceptive Position’, to more accurately address the true impact our species has on the planet.

“The models we make for our economy, they’re also disconnected,” he said. “I say to people ‘when you think about GDP…I say it’s a Grossly Deceptive Position’. If you don’t factor nature into GDP, the true cost, then it’s a fake value. Why do we value the companies that make more rather than improve? Why can’t we find it in ourselves to say ‘you’re doing something for the planet and for people and improving, then you have a greater opportunity to become a greater company’?”

ENVIRONMENTALIST AND EXPLORER

DAVID DE ROTHSCHILD

WE NEVER SEE OURSELVES AS PART OF THE [NATURAL] SYSTEM

GREEN TALK

De Rothschild pulled no punches when delving into the way we make things and how mass-production has created abundance, but at a steep environmental cost due to the extraordinary amount of waste generated throughout a product’s lifecycle.

He was also scornful of companies misusing ‘green’ or ‘eco’ labels, essentially calling them misnomers.

“We’ve got to stop rewarding ‘green’ [products and services] when they’re not truly green.”

He explained how the world became distracted by the Paris Climate Change Summit and the low bar it set for countries to simply acknowledge that climate change is a problem.

“If we take the words ‘climate change’ and replace them with the word ‘pollution’, we would be far more engaged – no one wants pollution.”

Replacing fear of nature with curiosity

De Rothschild believes there needs to be another sea-change in our mindset, this time turning our fear of the extremes within the natural world to almost a pure childlike curiosity.

“We have to ultimately realise that nature is a magician,” he said.“When it comes to our ability to act, we are dealing with an outdated brain model. We’re more afraid of being eaten by a shark even though statistically we are more likely to be hit by a car or choke on a peanut”.

“We have to replace our fear with curiosity; we have to let go of all our ideas – the way we thought, the way we think; we have to start really engaging our curiosity again.”

Collaboration over competition

The idea of competition is somewhat of anathema to the way the natural world has evolved, and according to De Rothschild, it would

be a great disservice for humanity not to benefit from learning how central the act of collaboration is in nature.

“As humans we’ve traditionally done great things when we’ve worked together…when you link in nature, there is no organism that exists in isolation,” De Rothschild said.

“If we can learn to find that common thread; that common connection; sharing data; sharing best practice, not being afraid to recognise it’s not a competition anymore but rather it’s a collaborative approach to our ability to live on this planet.”

De Rothschild believes human ego will determine the planet’s longevity.

“We are part of the web of life, we have one opportunity to live on this planet, we have all the solutions today … we need to start working together with more curiosity, with more empathy for each other, with more integration of ideas,” he added. “We have to work with nature as our partner.”

WE ARE PART OF THE WEB OF LIFE, WE HAVE ONE OPPORTUNITY TO LIVE ON THIS PLANET, WE HAVE ALL THE SOLUTIONS TODAY

5453

TRANSLATING THE GREEN ECONOMY PROMISE INTO PRACTICE


The government plays an integral role in the green economy by setting incentives, implementing subsidy reforms and creating multi-country partnerships.

The WGEO was founded as an equal partnership between government, businesses and other stakeholders, differentiating it from other inter-governmental organisations.

Developing nations are among the most motivated stakeholders in the green economy because they have greatly suffered from climate change.

While there are companies with good intentions, if there is no critical mass of like-minded businesses they’ll be forced to go against their philosophy to survive in a competitive market.

Green growth is a matter of both economic policy and sustainable development policy.

It will take significant long-term investment and innovation, necessary to avoid locking in inefficient and costly technology and infrastructure.

Governments should not only focus on setting green economy strategies but also on measuring progress.

Engage the private sector in green economy initiatives to benefit from the development of more efficient technologies.

Financing must be more accessible in devel-oping countries, where the risks and interests are high, returns are low, and policy environ-ment is not always conducive.

Tighter controls must be placed on dumping electronic waste on developing countries.

There are opportunities for synergies be-tween environmental and economic sustain-ability organization, especially for developing countries which can factor environmental is-sues into their investment decisions.

Investments and policies to deliver sustaina-ble and equitable outcomes, appropriate gov-ernance arrangements must be in place and to facilitate this and capacity development is needed.

PLENARY SESSION 4

AGENDA

Accelerating growth in the “green economy” is now an internationally-shared ambition. Although significant progress has been made in renewable energy deployment, other areas are still lagging, notably in energy efficiency, innovative transport and water management systems. The question is, how can success stories be communicated and taken to scale to realise global ambitions?

This session provided insight into how countries are transitioning to a sustainable model of economic growth and the value the World Green Economy Organisation will add to the green economy landscape.

AISHA AL ABDOOLIDIRECTOR OF GREEN DEVELOPMENT DEPARTMENT MINISTRY OF CLIMATE CHANGE AND ENVIRONMENT, UAE

MODERATOR PANELISTS

EDEM BAKHSHISHCHIEF OF DIVISION FOR ARAB STATES, EUROPE AND THE CIS UNITED NATIONS OFFICE FOR SOUTH-SOUTH COOPERATION, USA

SILVIA VELO, PHDUNDERSECRETARY OF STATE MINISTRY FOR THE ENVIRONMENT & PROTECTION OF LAND AND SEA, ITALY

YVO DE BOERPARTNER SRI EXECUTIVE, NETHERLANDS


From food and water insecurity to the loss of diversity and deforestation, population growth and youth unemployment, the world faces a mounting set of challenges that are taking the global economy in the wrong direction.

These negative trends, however, have led to game-changing developments over the last few years. The most significant was the establishment of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) in 2015, which were adopted by almost the entire international community.

The same year, Addis Ababa hosted the International Conference on Financing for Development, which put global finance in a different context, focusing on the mobilization of domestic capital and engaging the private sector.

Global political drive

In 2016, the UAE established the World Green Economy Organisation (WGEO) to provide technical, financial and moral support to the green economy. The new entity comprises seven platforms, including the Country Platform which now has the UAE, Italy and South Korea as members.

Silvia Velo, Undersecretary of State at Italy’s Ministry for the Environment & Protection of Land and Sea said her country was committed to achieving the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.

“Italy approved the first national law to address the green economy in 2015. The law comprises a package of measures to accelerate Italy’s transition to a green economy. We’re also working on taxation to remove fossil fuel subsidies” Velo explained.

Aisha Al Abdooli, Director of Green Development Department at the Ministry of Climate Change and Environment, noted the UAE’s initiative to build a green economy began six years ago, when the country launched the Green Economy for Sustainable Development strategy (2012–2021).

In 2015, the UAE cabinet approved the implementation plan for this strategy and renamed it the Green Agenda 2030. “We also realised it was important to measure progress towards the green economy, and that’s why we developed Green KPIs that cover the social, economic and environmental aspects of our transformation,” said Al Abdooli.

Engaging the private sector

The WGEO will join a busy international scene dominated by inter-governmental organisations. However, the rationale behind the WGEO is to create a platform that engages the private sector.

“The WGEO has an advantage in that it’s based on an equal partnership between the government, businesses and other stakeholders,” said Al Abdooli. This mechanism will help direct more investments in multi-stakeholder projects throughout the world, she predicted.

Italy signed bilateral agreements with more than 30 countries in the last two years, mostly from Africa, according to Velo. “We decided to help developing countries transition to a green economy, not only to realise renewable energy projects but also to improve their capacity building.”

Al Abdooli said that when the UAE developed its Green Agenda 2030, it emphasized the role of the private sector in achieving the country’s goals. “As a government, we are pushing public-private partnerships whereby the private sector can benefit from financing and participating in mega projects.”

Several large-scale projects have been developed in the UAE through power purchase agreements between the government and private-sector developers. For example, Masdar’s Shams 1 concentrated solar power plant, which started production in 2013, was developed in collaboration with France’s Total and Spain’s Abengoa.

In Dubai, the Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum Solar Park aims to reduce the cost of solar technology and leverage economies of scale. The project will expand its capacity to 5 gigawatts by 2030 and has attracted record-low bids from international companies.

Global South dilemma

Yvo De Boer, Partner and Senior Advisor in Global Sustainability at global recruitment firm SRI Executive, noted that while major projects were being realised in developed countries, the situation in the developing world differed.

In such regions, risks are big and returns are often low, and the policy environment is not always conducive. In addition, many projects are too small to attract the interest of big institutional investors.

Edem Bakhshish - Chief of Division for Arab States, Europe and the CIS at the UN Office for South-South Cooperation - said this was partly true. “Certainly, developing nations are facing

THE WGEO HAS AN ADVANTAGE IN THAT IT’S BASED ON AN EQUAL PARTNERSHIP BETWEEN THE GOVERNMENT, BUSINESSES AND OTHER STAKEHOLDERS

WE ARE PUSHING PUBLIC-PRIVATE PARTNERSHIPS WHEREBY THE PRIVATE SECTOR CAN BENEFIT FROM FINANCING AND PARTICIPATING IN MEGA PROJECTS

PLENARY SESSION 4

challenges, but the Global South is not homogenous. There are wealthier nations and poorer ones. The overall trend, however, is that the financial power of the Global South is growing and it’s becoming a major contributor to the green economy transition.”

The Global South comprises 133 developing nations which are among the most motivated stakeholders in the green economy because many have suffered tremendously from the effects of climate change.

However, the danger lies in the fact that unsustainable practices are contagious. While some countries and organisations have good intentions, when there’s no critical mass of them, they’ll be forced to go against their philosophy and adhere to negative practices to survive in a competitive market.

Furthermore, governments must address the problem of ‘built-in obsolescence’, where electronics are intentionally designed to become obsolete. Appliances work for some time and then suddenly stop working so that consumers buy new ones, a highly unsustainable process, Bakhshish noted.

Manufacturers do this to maintain sales. Additionally, many old electronic devices are illegally shipped to Ghana, where one neighbourhood has become the world’s largest junkyard for electronic waste.

“Countries of the Global South are suffering today - from contamination of air, soil and water, and health issues. That’s why this region has the strongest desire to transition to a greener economy,” Bakhshish concluded.

THE FINANCIAL POWER OF THE GLOBAL SOUTH IS GROWING AND IT’S BECOMING A MAJOR CONTRIBUTOR TO THE GREEN ECONOMY TRANSITION


FROM PARIS TO BONN: GLOBAL ASPIRATIONS AT A TIME OF POLITICAL UNCERTAINTY


Developing countries can contribute to the green economy because they have the resources, capabilities and experience.

Renegotiating the Paris Agreement terms will be tough, if not impossible, because signatory countries have already pledged the maximum they can offer.

Developed countries have a bigger historical responsibility for climate change and therefore should have greater obligations than developing nations.

The Green Climate Fund has been a disap-pointment and panelists were pessimistic it will succeed in raising $100 billion annually by 2020.

Developing nations should take advantage of their young workforce to contribute to the green economy, which is expected to create 60 million jobs.

Governments must think of creative ways to transform the $100 billion - Green Climate Fund into profitable investments.

When setting national strategies for climate change, governments should avoid relying on external funds.

Collaborating with neighbouring economies is crucial for preventing pollution from reaching a country’s environment.

A new approach is needed in the procurement of goods and services, one that prevents dealing with companies that don’t respect the environment.

PLENARY SESSION 5

AGENDA

The Paris Agreement was a major milestone, with 153 countries agreeing to fight climate change. The accords could be a turning point towards a low-carbon economy, setting a unified goal to keep global temperature rise below 2 degrees Celsius and to mobilize $100 billion every year by 2020 in climate aid for developing countries.

Implementing the agreement requires a massive increase in renewable energy production. Worldwide, renewable energy capacity has expanded three-fold since 2000, reaching 2,006 gigawatts by 2016-end . However, developed countries have not yet achieved their financial commitments and the Green Climate Fund is $40 billion short . Moreover, the Paris Agreement has been criticized for being too lax, allowing countries to reinterpret loosely-binding commitments to reduce greenhouse gas emissions . A year after the agreement entered into force, this session brought together relevant decision-makers to share their perspectives on the climate pact and reflect on progress towards its goals. The panel also discussed the role of advanced countries versus developing nations.

H.E. AZIZ RABBAHMINISTER OF ENERGY, MINES AND SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT, MOROCCO

MODERATOR PANELISTS

H.E. AHMED AL MUHAIRBISECRETARY GENERAL OF DUBAI SUPREME COUNCIL OF ENERGY, UAE

H.E. DR. MOHAMED MUBARAK BIN DAINACHIEF EXECUTIVE OFFICER SUPREME COUNCIL FOR ENVIRONMENT, BAHRAIN

NICKI SHIELDSHOST PRESENTER ANCHOR & PIT-LANE REPORTER, USA


“We are suffering from the climate change not because of developing countries. We must look at history and realise that developed countries have been emitting greenhouse gases all those years. It’s not fair now that developing nations share the same responsibilities as developed countries,” Rabbah explained.

Governments should not rely on external assistance

The Green Climate Fund (GCF) has proved disappointing, said Bin Daina. The fund was established within the framework of the UNFCCC to assist developing countries in countering climate change and was meant to jointly mobilise $100 billion a year by 2020 from advanced economies.

“We are nowhere near the fund’s goal. We’re not optimistic we’ll achieve the climate change goals by 2020. If we don’t accelerate those plans, we’re going to suffer more from climate change,” Bin Daina cautioned.

He added that negotiating the Paris Agreement was a tough process and few countries would want to renegotiate the agreement.

“If a party wanted to re-evaluate it, I think they will face huge resistance from the global community as countries have reached the maximum they can offer in Paris. I don’t think any party is willing to re-negotiate, especially in the Middle East,” Bin Daina noted.

H.E. Ahmed Al Muhairbi, Secretary General of Dubai Supreme Council of Energy, commented that having a loose framework to address the climate change challenge should enables countries to create tailored solutions because a one-fits-all approach will not work.

The UAE, for example, is doing just that, launching the Dubai Green Fund, which aims to raise AED 100 billion (USD 27 billion) by 2030, and also establishing retrofitting and demand-side management programs.

“This is all in line with the climate change agreement. Developed countries have to provide funding, technology and expertise, and developing nations need to put up the programs, policies and strategies to move forward,” Al Muhairbi said.

New procurement approach needed

Rabbah said governments should consider introducing laws that ban the purchase of goods or services from companies that don’t respect the environment, a suggestion that was met with applause. “We could set such criteria in our procurement and international tenders,” said Rabbah.

Climate change is probably the biggest challenge facing the world today, also presenting an opportunity for communities to change production and consumption patterns.

Morocco has changed laws governing its environment and mining sectors as well as foreign investment and public-private partnerships. For energy, the country has turned to natural gas and renewables to boost its economic independence.

“Investment in Morocco’s renewable energy sector is huge. We recently endorsed the national strategy for sustainable development 2030, which addresses climate change, environmental protection, green economy and water pollution. A country that hosts the Conference of the Parties (COP22) must set a good example,” said H.E. Aziz Rabbah, Morocco’s Minister of Energy, Mines and Sustainable Development.

An opportunity for developing countries

Rabbah said developing countries have the resources, capabilities and experience to contribute to the green economy. “The development of a green economy is expected to create 60 million new jobs in the next 20 years. The bulk will come from developing countries, especially Africa. There’s an opportunity for developing economies to take advantage of their human capacities, research and innovation,” he said.

Morocco has attracted numerous international investors and academic institutions and has signed multiple research and development agreements with global institutions. Most importantly, the country collaborates with its African neighbours.

“You can protect your own space from pollution. But if your neighbour’s space becomes polluted, then it will reach you too. Therefore, we believe in cooperating with neighbouring countries, both African and European, to keep our shared space clean,” said Rabbah.

H.E. Dr. Mohamed Mubarak Bin Daina, Chief Executive Officer of Bahrain’s Supreme Council for Environment, stated his country is seeking solutions to the challenges posed by climate change.

“We developed the National Plan for Energy Efficiency and the National Plan for Renewable Energy and set targets to achieve 6% national electrical energy efficiency by 2025 and 5% contribution from renewable energies by 2025. We’re also planning to tender a 100-megawatt solar power project very soon, so we are on track to implement our clean energy plans,” said Bin Daina.

Balancing the responsibilities

The panelists agreed the Paris climate accord was purposely developed with a loose-fitting framework to allow countries to develop their own climate strategies. “It’s up to each country to define its targets. It’s a general declaration of principles that may become binding international laws,” said Rabbah.

He highlighted the principle of ‘common but differentiated responsibilities’, which has been a key feature of the climate negotiations for many years and is central to the Paris Agreement.

This principle allows developing countries to argue their lack of historical responsibility for climate change means they should have different obligations than those of developed countries.

WE ARE SUFFERING FROM THE CLIMATE CHANGE NOT BECAUSE OF DEVELOPING COUNTRIES


The days of viewing space as the final frontier for human exploration and experimentation may be anachronistic following the passing of historic milestones such as putting humans on the moon and sending multi-billion dollar probes to beyond our solar system, but it is not in humankind’s nature to sit on our laurels, as Ken Cameron attests.

The former three-time Space Shuttle Pilot and retired U.S. Marine Corps Colonel is a proponent for pushing the boundaries of not just outward exploration but inward too.

“What I’ve seen in many people and observed working with teachers is that self-doubt is by far the greatest enemy of personal ambition, when we train our students in the physical sciences and all the things that seem to be the hard-core parts of education, there’s also room for fostering curiosity,” said Cameron, who has also applied his expertise to various management and consultative positions in product development for General Motors.

He said that for many people, especially young people, the idea of being an astronaut is so distant that it barely registers in their subconscious mind. He assured the audience that their boundaries are farther than they think.

He based this on his own experience in the U.S. Marine Corps which provided him the training to realise that his perceived limitations could be stretched. He emphasised how having parents who believe in the power of education, particularly in reading, mathematics and the sciences, and in supporting his innate curiosities about the world, contributed to his many multi-disciplinary successes in and out of the space programme.

“The ability to learn by doing has been a great benefit to me,” he said.

Cameron sought to change the audience’s perspective on the idea of exploration and adventure by sharing a visually-arresting high-resolution image taken of Dubai and its coastline from the International Space Station (ISS) flying 250 miles above the earth and travelling at 5 miles per second. Astronauts on the ISS circle the earth 16 times a day, thus giving them many opportunities to see different parts of our planet.

Building relationships

“The International Space Station is the home for all of our astronauts, cosmonauts, European Space Agency fliers and fliers from other nations” said Cameron as he explained the international collaborative effort that continues to fuel such an ambitious endeavour.

Nothing better illustrates the need for close collaboration regardless of ideological differences than the 20th century space race between the U.S. and Soviet Union.

“When I was growing up, John Glenn [the first American to orbit the earth] was my hero,” explained Cameron, “the Soviet Union was on the other side, and the space race developed as a competition between two ideologies, two governments, two peoples in opposition to each other. We weren’t close to [being] on the same team considering we all lived on the same planet. This space station, which had been launched by the Soviet Union as a Soviet space station, really didn’t even become available for us to cooperate with or fly to until the early 1990s after a change of government”.

“Once that happened,” Cameron continued, “we realised we had a very capable space shuttle that could fly cargo up and return

RETIRED AMERICAN NAVAL AVIATORU.S. MARINE CORPS OFFICER, AND NASA ASTRONAUT

KENNETH D. CAMERON

INSPIRATIONAL TALK INSPIRATIONAL TALK

cargo to earth, they had a fantastic space station and a great deal of experience in long-duration flight … so we were flying up to the Russian space station in collaboration with the Russians to bring a Russian-built module in the payload bay of the Shuttle to build the Russian space station.”

Cameron explained that those few days in space were nothing compared to the amount of time dedicated to training and development to begin bringing the two former enemies together, unified in their ambition to explore space.

An “epic challenge” for change

Cameron’s talk came just weeks after the UAE had made its own space exploration ambitions official with the view to training home-grown astronauts to be mission-ready for space exploration by 2021. It holds the promise of being a powerful catalyst to inspire new generations of Emiratis and their regional peers.

Cameron calls this pursuit of a national space programme an “epic challenge” for a nation’s leadership to drive and lead positive change and innovation, and not simply a frivolous venture to send “tourists” to space.

“The goal of the UAE space programme is to be a scientific programme of investigation which will lead to the fulfilment of other large goals” he said, elaborating on current efforts by the Gulf country to develop a probe to send to Mars to gather atmospheric data.

He further explained that sights have been set to have a city built on Mars by 2117 – a century from now.

“Hundred-year goals are useful to have because they set the tone

of innovation for the future and drive change and help encourage innovation. If you think it’s impossible to predict 100 years into the future, I must tell you that a hundred years in the past no one thought it was possible if you said you could jump in an aeroplane in the United States and fly here to Dubai across an ocean. It’s now a hundred years after the early days of flying and what we thought was ridiculously far-fetched at that time is now no more.”

THE ABILITY TO LEARN BY DOING HAS BEEN A GREAT BENEFIT TO ME

6463

POLICY DIALOGUE – THE SUCCESS FORMULA FOR PUBLIC-PRIVATE PARTNERSHIPS (PPP): ACHIEVING GROWTH AND ENVIRONMENTAL IMPACT


The private sector historically avoided partic-ipating in public sector projects because the potential financial return was unclear.

Projects with social development angles tend to contradict the profit-making models of private sector stakeholders.

In Kuwait, PPP projects have faced political and legal opposition because their benefits weren’t explained properly.

Most private partners tend to be international – how can we attract more local private sector players?

Green economy PPP projects must be attrac-tive to government, private sector developers and lenders.

Conflict resolution between public and private sector stakeholders is an ongoing issue that must be tackled more effectively.

PPP project terms must be adhered to, otherwise they will damage the credibility of project partners.

There is an urgent need to highlight successful PPP projects.

PARALLEL SESSION 3A

AGENDA

Public-private partnerships (PPPs) refer to long-term contracts between a private company and a government agency for providing a public asset or service. The appeal of PPPs for governments is that they allow for a multiplier effect on public resources which are not sufficient to finance the infrastructure required.

The primary challenges for PPPs include ensuring their financially viability for projects with large up-front costs and dependence on accurate forecasting of future demand. Often, they also have environmental and social impacts which later add to costs and impact the overall financial viability. In many large infrastructure projects, the lack of effective consideration of environmental factors and the resulting social risk factors can directly create negative financial returns.

NAYEF AL-HADDADMANAGER KUWAIT AUTHORITY OF PARTNERSHIP PROJECTS, KUWAIT

MODERATOR PANELISTS

WISSAM RABADICOP OF THE JORDAN COMPETITIVENESS PROGRAM JCP USAID FUNDED PROGRAM, JORDAN

SEBASTIEN BERNARDGENERAL COUNCIL VEOLIA MIDDLE EAST, FRANCE

LASSE RINGIUSDEPUTY DIRECTOR AND HEAD OF GREEN INVESTMENT SERVICES GGGI, SOUTH KOREA


to have success stories because without success stories we cannot develop or replicate this model in our municipalities.”

An impressed Al-Haddad commented: “This is a model I would like to use in creating diversity in the kind of projects tendered for PPP”.

“These are the stories we like to hear that could help the local community,” he said, adding these case studies could attract not just an international cohort of private sector participants, but would also encourage their local counterparts, creating jobs and opportunities for knowledge exchange.

Wissam Rabadi, COP of the Jordan Competitiveness Program (JCP), a multi-million dollar USAID-funded programme that helps coordinate projects in the clean-tech, biotech and ICT sectors, echoed Al-Haddad’s sentiment saying that it was also worth widely publicising PPP project success stories. “I think it would be a great idea to see if we can capture some of these experiences and share them.”

Public-private partnership projects tend to bring together the seemingly opposing forces of communal service and profitmaking for projects that are ultimately meant to benefit the public.

Scepticism among private sector partners tends to be one of the biggest obstacles to PPP projects.

Consider this important thought shared by Nayef Al-Haddad, Manager, Kuwait Authority of Foreign Affairs: “PPP isn’t a concept if it’s not being accepted publicly - it could be a threat to the public and when this happens, it will be a risk for lenders and sponsors to participate in such a project, they would consider it a hostile environment.”

A view from the private sector

Sebastien Bernard - General Counsel for French service and utility company, Veolia, in the Middle East - was sanguine when asked by the moderator to share his perspective on what benefits he saw from engaging in PPP projects.

“Veolia is not a power producer as such, despite this I would say that natural utilities such as power and water are very well structured under PPPs because they are tendered by government or governmental entities, (and) have long-term offtake agreements backed by the government, which of course makes those projects very interesting in terms of bankability,” he said.

He believes another great regional project candidate for PPP is district cooling, despite the challenges associated with these types of projects being so closely integrated with real estate developers.

Attracting the private sector to PPP projects

A member of the expert audience, Ihad Alsawair, Technical Advisor for the Minister and Director of Green Economy Unit at Jordan’s Ministry of Environment, spoke passionately about the challenges of convincing the private sector to participate in green PPP projects.

“There is a lack of confidence – not only in Jordan – because the private sector most of the time doesn’t believe in public projects and this has to be changed. The private sector should be incentivised to invest in green projects,” he said.

He highlighted some successful examples of green PPP projects in Jordan as proof the PPP format can thrive.

Once such PPP project, he said, was a major industrial wastewater treatment plant in Jordan’s Zarqa region, which is also one of country’s largest environmental infrastructure projects.

More PPP success stories needed to attract private sector interest

Another audience member from Morocco shared some of local success stories of green PPP projects involving street lighting, waste-to-energy projects and the introduction of eco transportation.

He explained how, for example, a street lighting PPP pilot decreased electricity consumption by 16% and is now being replicated across 40 municipalities in and around Agadir.

He stressed: “It’s very important in this new area [of green projects]

THE PRIVATE SECTOR SHOULD BE INCENTIVISED TO INVEST IN GREEN PROJECTS

Conflict management in PPPs

Managing conflicts during projects often comes with the territory. Expectation management between public entities and private sector partners, however, adds another dynamic that requires finesse and a head for diplomacy.

“In the beginning, governments like to take a very conservative approach towards these kinds of projects,” commented Al-Haddad whose remit involves private sector engagement in local infrastructure projects and policymaking.

“This is what we faced with the first project that we tendered. We took almost two years through parliamentary interrogations. There are three current proposals still pending in the courts and we’ve (faced) a lot of false claims from the parliament members, from the public” said Al-Haddad.

Due to the current state of the Kuwaiti economy and the austerity measures taken by its government, many public entities with project proposals are directed to Al-Haddad’s office for funding, he said.

To determine projects’ feasibility – and to avoid the potential for a mismatch of expectations among stakeholders and other possible conflicts - Al-Haddad explained the importance of both sides being transparent in communicating their capabilities.

PARALLEL SESSION 3A

WITHOUT SUCCESS STORIES WE CANNOT DEVELOP OR REPLICATE THIS MODEL IN OUR MUNICIPALITIES

Are international investors crowding out local private sector players?

The presence of the local private sector in PPP projects is overshadowed by international players.

In Kuwait, Al-Haddad said, with many local firms and investors more inclined to join PPP projects only if they can have an near-monopolistic grip on the project.

“Some of the local players – [they bring] no added value, they act as, I would say a front face,” he said.

Conversely, when international companies get involved in local PPP projects, they usually bring their own lines of credit and expertise which effectively locks out the local private sector or local sources of funding.

This raises several issues for the local private sector, particularly the lack of a working relationship and exposure between local banks and international private investors.


YOUTH ENGAGEMENT: INNOVATION, ENTREPRENEURSHIP, AND THE GREEN LIFESTYLE


Hackathons, innovation labs and competitions are crucial entry points for young entrepre-neurs.

Architects and engineers are largely responsi-ble for buildings’ energy consumption, which is why the Solar Decathlon focuses on university students in those two majors.

Governments can motivate people financially, through solicitations for improved technology, or through competitions. The latter has prov-en more effective when it comes to motivating students.

Youth have the most vested interest in the future of our planet but because they are near the beginning of their lives.

There is a need for private-sector sponsored competitions that are easily accessible.

Simplifying concepts and terminology for a youth audience would achieve better results.

When engaging youth, one should communi-cate the benefits, share experiences, and find a relevant entry point that builds on an existing belief.

PARALLEL SESSION 3B

AGENDA

Over the course of history, young people have consistently demonstrated their desire to tackle global challenges. Being flexible to change, this segment of society can significantly drive green growth, while a shift towards a sustainable economy can bolster youth employment. The International Labour Organisation estimates the green economy transition could generate 15 million to 60 million additional jobs over the next two decades, lifting millions out of poverty and creating new opportunities for youth.

This session gathered a group of accomplished young entrepreneurs and innovators to highlight opportunities in the green industry for the youth to be entrepreneurial. The panel also discussed ways to involve young people in decision making and encourage them to lead a greener lifestyle.

SIMON BUSHELLCO-FOUNDER & CEO, SYMPOWER, NETHERLANDS

PANELISTS

IVAN PASICHNYKCEO & CO-FOUNDER, ECOISME, UKRAINE

RICHARD KINGSENIOR ADVISOR SOLAR DECATHLON MIDDLE EAST, USA

JENS WANDELSENIOR ADVISOR, SELF-EMPLOYED, USA

MODERATOR

KHALID AL AMERICOLUMNISTTHE NATIONAL, UAE


He added that the process of engaging the youth starts with parents; it was their responsibility to teach their children how to be conscious of their consumption and habits. After that, it goes to schools and universities, then the government and media.

Pasichnyk said young people don’t always understand complex terms, and thus, simplifying concepts for the mass youth audience would achieve better results.

Communicating with youth also has its own rules. For instance, to encourage young people to adopt an environmentally friendly lifestyle, it is better to talk about the benefits of new habits than preach. “Go for the heart not the head, and tell stories not facts. Share your experiences and the benefits you got instead of trying to convince people of making huge changes,” Bushell advised.

Wandel recommended finding an entry point, be it the environment, abuse of labour, or simply the sense of being part of something bigger. “We need to see the idea underneath what people are doing and build on that.”

The range of sustainability platforms available for youth today is wider than it has ever been. One of the newest examples of such initiatives is UNLEASH, a talent program launched in Denmark in August 2017. The initiative aims to create a global platform dedicated to the Sustainable Development Goals, where talents can access an eco-system of corporations, Think-tanks, non-profits, and angel investors.

“We managed to bring together 1,000 youth between 20 and 35 years old from 125 nationalities. We made a distinction between entrepreneurs, intrapreneurs and academia, and made sure that each team consisted of different nationalities,” Jens Wandel, a Senior Advisor based in the USA and a former Assistant Secretary General and Director of Bureau for Management Services at the UN Development Programme said.

Ivan Pasichnyk, CEO & Co-Founder of Ecoisme, a Ukrainian technology firm that began in an incubator program, said it was very important to show young people technology. “University and incubator programs should bring young people closer to technology. They rarely get to see and touch things like solar panels.”

He added that hackathons, innovation labs and open competitions are crucial entry points for young entrepreneurs. Moreover, some of the ideas that these programs attract could be commercially viable and scalable, Wandel noted. “That’s how I see people coming together. We need private-sector sponsored competitions and we need to explain to people where they can apply.”

Meanwhile, the Middle East’s first Solar Decathlon will take place in Dubai in 2018. The international competition was first established by the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) in 2012 for students to design, build and operate grid-connected, solar powered houses.

“It’s got the full engagement of about 2,000 students of architecture and engineering from 20 universities. Our youth has the most vested interest in the future of our planet, not only financially, but (because) they’re going to the live the longest,” said Richard King, Senior Advisor at the Solar Decathlon Middle East.

He added that buildings account for nearly half of global energy consumption, and it is architects and engineers who are responsible because they determine factors like energy efficiency and which materials to use. “I consider them the most important people in the world because of that responsibility and influence.”

Who’s responsible?

In Wandel’s opinion, the private sector should be most responsible for engaging young people. “The best way forward for companies is to use public organisations such as the World Green Economy Organisation to create the necessary partnerships.”

For Simon Bushell, Co-Founder and CEO of Netherlands-based Sympower, the world is beyond the point of asking who’s responsible. “We need everything and everyone. If you have a passion for something to do with sustainability, just go for it. If we all do that, we’ll hopefully get somewhere.”

When it comes to government, there are two ways to motivate people: either financially with solicitations for improved technology or through competitions, according to King. “Challenging people to come up with the best idea and getting rewarded for that is a great motivator for students.”

GO FOR THE HEART NOT THE HEAD, AND TELL STORIES NOT FACTS


POLICY DIALOGUE – INNOVATION AND THE DEVELOPING WORLD: FROM HUMBLE BEGINNINGS TO GLOBAL IMPACT


Not all energy innovation involves product development but can include developing new systems and processes.

Using nature as inspiration to innovate and develop new renewable energy technologies is important.

Blockchain-inspired models of distributed energy systems could provide game-changing competition to existing centralised energy production and distribution systems.

The MENA region’s historical pioneers and innovators be harnessed as powerful sources of inspiration for current and future generations.

Micro-grids should be able to keep up with increasing energy demand as ‘end-of-pipe’ power generation solutions such as solar panels, continue to drop in price.

Engaging the diaspora community of a developing nation can be a powerful tool to help garner local public acceptance of green projects.

At an academic level, an R&D and innovation culture needs to be nurtured, instead of simply investing in R&D and innovation from elsewhere.

PARALLEL SESSION 4A

AGENDA

The reasons for slow growth in the developing world are well documented – poor infrastructure, lack of education and money, high levels of diseases, political corruption and instability, and greater susceptibility to the effects of climate change. Amid these challenges, several enterprises have introduced innovative solutions that are improving people’s lives and boosting economic growth, and which can be replicated in other emerging markets. According to a 2015 PwC report , the top 15 fastest-growing large economies over the next 34 years will be from the developing world. Developing nations will thus play an important role in progressing environmentally sustainable economic growth.

DR. NOURA MANSOURISENIOR RESEARCH ASSOCIATE, KING ABDULLAH PETROLEUM STUDIES AND RESEARCH CENTER, KSA

MODERATOR PANELISTS

ANIS AOUINIANIS AOUINI, INVENTOR, CO-FOUNDER & CHAIRMAN SAPHON ENERGY, TUNISIA

SCOTT KENNEDYEXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, ENERGY ACTION PARTNERS ASSISTANT DIRECTOR MIT, USA

TOMOO MACHIBASUSTAINABILITY POLICY SPECIALIST MINISTRY OF CLIMATE CHANGE AND ENVIRONMENT, UAE


“Essentially it’s a way to localise the design and achieve more sustainable micro-grid deployment, particularly in communities where there’s a big transformation from maybe no energy or very limited energy supply into one where you try to provide a sustainable energy supply,” he said.

Building local capacity

Building local expertise is a constant impediment to developing indigenous energy systems and networks.

“In Somaliland, one of our key challenges we’re facing is local technical capacity to build a team there,” said Kennedy. “Our work has focused on the commercial sector for solar, diesel and mini-grids.”

To reduce risk exposure, attract and develop local talent and increase local private sector investment from the likes of hotels, businesses and institutions, a ‘bootstrapping’ approach has been taken where projects are kept small initially. This approach, Kennedy said, would allow these systems to gradually scale up over time.

There are about 2 billion people without access to energy today. Most developing world populations still live close to nature compared with more advanced economies, therefore opportunities to learn and adapt ideas from the natural world to solve problems are more apparent.

When it comes to producing energy and managing its distribution, some of the best solutions are simple, indigenous and come from nature.

Learning from nature

Anis Aouini, Inventor, co-founder and Chairman of Tunisia’s Saphon Energy, has developed a new concept for a wind energy converter called ‘Tyer Wind’ which imitates a hummingbird’s wing movements. The concept known as biomimicry – whereby manmade inventions take their cues from nature - is being adopted in Silicon Valley.

“Tyer Wind is based on new technology but an old philosophy,” said Aouini. “This new machine is completely different compared to the conventional wind turbine.”

Aouini said that there was no secret method involved in developing his inventions, he simply observed nature.

Improving energy access for more inclusive growth

“Some innovation is not always a product, it may be around a process or looking at a system and how to improve that system,” said Scott Kennedy, Executive Director, Energy Action Partners, Assistant Director at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT).

Sharing his findings from academia and his work through Energy Action Partners, Kennedy spoke about leveraging the transition from fossil fuels to clean energy as the catalyst for more inclusive growth in developing countries.

“Whenever there is a technological transformation there’s a social adoption aspect that is important to address,” he said.

In studying rural off-grid energy access markets in the developing world, Kennedy and his team discovered that while there were few issues setting up the infrastructure to generate energy in these communities, managing the electricity distribution, theft protection and a lack of expertise or interest to maintain these systems, were ongoing challenges.

“As anyone who works in this sector knows there are many legacy systems of solar, diesel, wind, renewable systems that are left rusting because they’ve been abandoned,” he said. “One activity we’ve addressed is how you localise the governance of the system – not necessarily the ownership or operation – with end users.’

Kennedy then explained how his team developed a game-based approach to achieving energy access in Malaysia where designing a micro-grid was turned into a participatory effort, with community members working with policymakers to “play” through scenarios of how the grid will operate.

His team then studied issues around pricing and demand-side management to address the socio-technical challenges of micro-grid deployment.

“One way to address this missing component of technical capacity is to start with smaller projects and then partner with international firms for larger projects, so we have a very learning-based scaled approach towards energy sector development,” he said.

Attracting investment

Attracting investment for localised energy systems in developing countries is another challenge. Often, limited local public finance options means it falls upon global investors to foot the bill.

Another systemic problem Kennedy identified is one of understanding and having faith in various clean energy technologies. To overcome this, Kennedy explained, it is key to engage the diaspora communities.

“Diaspora investors that would like to invest in economic growth back home are a good bridge, they have a slightly different risk profile than the local private sector,” said Kennedy.

Using blockchains to reach off-grid communities

Blockchains – essentially a decentralised way of storing data across a conceptual chain of blocks – is starting to gain traction in parts of the energy industry, albeit with varying levels of enthusiasm.

PARALLEL SESSION 4A

WHENEVER THERE IS A TECHNOLOGICAL TRANSFORMATION THERE’S A SOCIAL ADOPTION ASPECT THAT IS IMPORTANT TO ADDRESS

Dr. Noura Mansouri - Senior Research Associate, King Abdullah Petroleum Studies and Research Center in Saudi Arabia – spoke about the potentially disruptive implications blockchain technology could have on the energy industry.

“Blockchain has been identified by the World Energy Council as the number one uncertainty in the energy sector,” she said.

She drew parallels between the transformative potential of blockchain theory and how the TCP/IP protocol enabled the creation of the Internet.

She said the concept of blockchains naturally lends itself to decentralised energy micro-grids turning energy consumers into energy producers, allowing them to sell excess energy back into the grid.

“The potential for this technology is huge,” she added. “It raises so many questions such as reliability, management of the grid and central authority.”

PARALLEL SESSION 4A

BLOCKCHAIN HAS BEEN IDENTIFIED BY THE WORLD ENERGY COUNCIL AS THE NUMBER ONE UNCERTAINTY IN THE ENERGY SECTOR

7675

DIGITAL TRANSFORMATION: THE CORE OF THE NEW GREEN ECONOMY


Digital technology is accelerating the green economy, through mechanisms such as smart metering and real-time traffic management.

Forward-thinking countries are making data available to wider audiences without jeopardizing security or privacy.

Affordability is a concern for governments, and policymakers are trying to create more stable revenue streams to finance green-digitisation initiatives.

The digital economy poses a potential threat to the need for human resources, which could in turn have a negative impact on societies.

Governments need to retrain, re-equip, and re-tool their workforces for the digital economy.

Deploying sensors enables governments to take predictive actions, which in turn can save lives and prevent damage caused by natural disasters such as flooding.

If governments are more open about the data that sensors generate, and if they make this data available to a wider audience the bene-fits will be larger.

Artificial intelligence should be used to turn data into insights, then into foresight, and eventually automated decision making.

PARALLEL SESSION 4B

AGENDA

Integrating the digital economy with the green economy creates opportunities for sustainable development and economic resilience. Such synergies have been recognized in a handful of countries, which have made investments in broadband infrastructure, smart electricity grids, buildings, transportation, e-health and e-education applications.

But while ICT and the Internet can help countries overcome various constraints, they also present threats to sustainable development, for instance, through the increased consumption of energy.

This session provided insights into how digital technology can be leveraged in the context of economic, social and environmental challenges faced by countries today. The panel identified ways to maximize the synergies between ICT and sustainable development and explored the challenges that could arise in this process.

RAMEZ DANDANCHIEF TECHNOLOGY OFFICERMICROSOFT GULF, UAE

MODERATOR PANELISTS

BJOERN EWERSPARTNER & MANAGING DIRECTORBOSTON CONSULTING GROUP, UAE

NEVZAT SIMSEKINDUSTRY DIRECTOR FOR ENERGY & NATURAL RESOURCESSAP UAE & OMAN, UAE

MADHAV NARAYANVP & CHIEF DIGITAL BUSINESS OFFICER DUBAI ELECTRICITY & WATER AUTHORITY, UAE


First, mobility – the apps we use as individuals and the data generated from sensors. Second, analytics, or the use of artificial intelligence to look through that data, find patterns and gather insights. And third, cloud technology, which has been a great enabler in creating smart cities.

“These technologies are coming together, enabling public and private sector entities to address real problems like clean air, quieter cities, and more efficient transportation,” Dandan noted.

If governments were more open about the data generated, and made it available to a wider audience, the benefits obtained would be much greater, he added. “A lot of efforts are being made about how to open up that data without jeopardizing security or privacy.”

From a public-sector viewpoint, affordability is a major concern, and policymakers worldwide are trying to create more stable revenue streams to finance green digitisation initiatives.

“Los Angeles is a great example with smart parking, where drivers are guided by an app to a free parking spot. They have increased parking collection fees by 30%,” Ewers explained.

The threat on human resources

The digital economy may make many jobs obsolete, which could in turn have a negative social impact, Narayan pointed out. Responding to this, Dandan said technology has always affected job markets – the development of automobiles and trains impacted the equine industry, for example.

“There’s always a price to pay. We don’t know today which direction it will take. The UAE recently adopted artificial intelligence and the trajectory is that you go from using data which gives you insights, to that which provides foresight, to eventually automated decision making where humans don’t have to interfere,” he explained.

Simsek suggested digital transformation may not necessarily affect the number of jobs. Instead, it may require different human skillsets.

Dubai’s new ‘One Million Arab Coders’ initiative aims to equip regional youth with fluency in coding and programming. The free training will be provided in partnership with private-sector institutions. Already, more than 500,000 people from 22 countries worldwide have applied to join the programme, which launched in October 2017.

“The government of Dubai is always thinking about the next thing, adopting blockchain technology for transactions to reduce carbon emissions and waste generation, and dematerializing jobs. Billions of dirhams will be saved by adopting emerging technologies such as blockchain,” said Dandan.

These efforts, he added, are part of an ongoing movement to gain more efficiency out of limited resources or to reduce resources. “The government understands that we need to retrain, re-equip, and re-tool.”

The panel discussed the pros and cons of digital transformation in the green economy. Moderator Madhav Narayan, Vice President & Chief Digital Business Officer at Dubai Electricity & Water Authority, opened the discussion by emphasizing the critical role technology plays in achieving a balance between human development and the environment.

“The concept of a green economy was triggered during the global financial crisis and has become a framework for restoring economic growth and responding to climate change. At each stage of the evolution of technology, there have been positive and negative effects on the economy, society and environment – the three pillars of sustainable development,” Narayan said.

Today, digitization is present in every economic sector, changing our everyday life, business models, and the way we think and act.

“There are many opportunities for creating synergies between digital and the green economy through strategies such as green ICT products and services, smart energy grid, transportation and infrastructure, production processes, smart systems for monitoring the environment and managing natural resources, dematerialisation of products and services in marketplaces, and in public services,” Narayan explained.

Creating resilient cities

Bjoern Ewers, Partner and Managing Director of Boston Consulting Group in the UAE, said ICT can accelerate green economy initiatives. For example, smart metering is helping with demand-side management to reduce household consumption. The same applies to water consumption. Control systems are attached to pipes to reduce the leakage – regional pilot schemes show a 20% decrease in water loss.

“Digital technology is being used to reduce the burden on our environment. In transportation, it is impacting how we move around, enabling real-time traffic management and dynamic tolling models that reduce the time cars are on the road, thereby reducing pollution,” Ewers explained.

Singapore is a great example, he said. The country has cut peak congestion by 50% through real-time traffic management. On the societal side, Dubai is a pioneer in e-government, eliminating the need for individuals to physically visit authorities.

Responding to the moderator’s question on how digital technology help cities become more resilient to the challenges posed by urbanisation, Nevzat Simsek, Industry Director for Energy & Natural Resources at SAP UAE and Oman, used the example of Rio de Janeiro, where flooding happens often.

“We have (installed) sensors in the drainage systems. This takes predictive actions before the rainy season starts. The sensors measure the water level in the systems and the city is able to direct teams to those locations in advance to unlock any blockages,” Simsek explained.

Making the most of data

On the topic of integrating smart ICT policies into sustainable development policies, Ramez Dandan, Chief Technology Officer at Microsoft Gulf, said digital economies are usually built on three technological foundations.


HE Saeed Mohammed Al Tayer, Vice Chairman of the Dubai Supreme Council of Energy, MD & CEO of Dubai Electricity and Water Authority (DEWA), and Chairman of WGES, announced the 4th Dubai Declaration 2017 on October 25, 2017, the final day of the summit.

Al Tayer began his address by expressing his gratitude to HH Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Vice President and Prime Minister of the UAE and Ruler of Dubai, for his presence and his patronage of the fourth edition of the Summit.

He lauded the successful event which presented constructive ideas, advanced technologies, innovative visions and strategies that will contribute to a more prosperous and sustainable future.

“Together with all the leaders, experts, partners and global initiatives, we are united in our quest to make the world a better place to live. Dubai has shown the world that it has always delivered on its promises as it continues its endeavours to become the global capital of the green economy, reinforcing its global position as a role model in partnerships and green finance” he said.

“The major strategies – starting from the UAE Centennial 2071, UAE Vision 2021, Dubai Plan 2021, UAE Green Agenda 2030 and Dubai Clean Energy Strategy 2050 to the Paris Agreement – have set the course for a continuous economic growth and sustainable development.”

Al Tayer noted that the Dubai Declaration reflects the endeavours and determination to make Dubai a global hub of green economy.

“As we work to further enhance Dubai’s position as a global role model for sustainability, we will be relentless in our efforts to deliver

innovative solutions that contribute to the transformation towards a green economy. Our wise leadership recently announced its support for the UAE National Climate Change Plan 2050 to reflect the nation’s goals to become among the best-prepared countries to combat climate change and achieve sustainable development”.

“This plan unifies our concerted efforts and enhances cooperation between the private and public sectors and will become a major element in the transition to a green economy. The UAE has set an example for an economy based on solid public-private partnerships as part of its pioneering role to achieve environmental sustainability.”

Speaking about Dubai’s future aspirations, Al Tayer noted the emirate will continue its journey towards excellence by launching mega green projects, such as the Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum Solar Park, which is the largest single-site solar park in the world based on the independent power producer (IPP) model, with a planned capacity of 5,000 megawatts by 2030.

“We are also establishing a renewable energy research and development centre equipped with the latest technologies. Additionally, the country is striving to achieve the Green Mobility Initiative in Dubai to promote the use of electric vehicles,” Al Tayer explained.

Commenting on global partnerships, he said that following the launch of the World Green Economy Organisation (WGEO) in 2016, the organisation has been working with many countries to implement the global green economy agenda, through joint discussions and technical support. The WGEO has launched seven platforms, including the Country Platform which was revealed on the first day of the Summit, where in addition to the UAE, Italy and

VICE CHAIRMAN OF THE DUBAI SUPREME COUNCIL OF ENERGY,MD & CEO OF DUBAI ELECTRICITY AND WATER AUTHORITY (DEWA), AND CHAIRMAN OF WGES

HE SAEED MOHAMMED AL TAYER

DUBAI DECLARATION 2017

South Korea have joined as members.

Al Tayer affirmed that the UAE government will continue to work with the United Nations Development Program to support the growth and development of WGEO as a key strategic player for achieving the aspirations of a green economy.

He said that green finance was one of the five main pillars of the Dubai Clean Energy Strategy 2050 announced in 2015. The strategy includes the establishment of the AED 100 billion Dubai Green Fund with a view to finance investments in the clean energy sector through partnerships with financial institutions to support green projects locally and internationally.

In this regard, DEWA and National Bonds announced a collaboration on the first day of the summit to launch the green fund with an initial AED 2.4 billion and to introduce a Sharia-compliant arm. This was a testament of the UAE’s commitment to enhancing green finance, Al Tayer noted.

Concluding his speech, he emphasised the role of youth and their contribution to the economy, emphasising they are tomorrow’s leaders and the generation that will lead change for a better future.

THE UAE HAS SET AN EXAMPLE FOR AN ECONOMY BASED ON SOLID PUBLIC-PRIVATE PARTNERSHIPS AS PART OF ITS PIONEERING ROLE TO ACHIEVE ENVIRONMENTAL SUSTAINABILITY

DUBAI DECLARATION 2017 8281

S P O N S O R S & P A R T N E R S

SPONSORS & PARTNERS

HEADLINE SPONSOR

CONTENT PARTNERS

GOLD SPONSOR

SILVER SPONSOR

STRATEGIC PARTNER

MEDIA PARTNERS

OFFICIAL AIRLINE PARTNER OFFICIAL TRANSFER PARTNER

SPONSORS & PARTNERS 8685

P H O T O G A L L E R Y

PHOTO GALLERY PHOTO GALLERY 9089

PHOTO GALLERY PHOTO GALLERY 9291

PHOTO GALLERY NOTES

NOTES

9493

NOTES

NOTES

95

wges 2017: building for future generations · governments, businesses and societies worldwide have...

Documents