Saudi Arabia’s crown prince and China’s president discuss climate change

RIYADH: Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman on Tuesday said the Kingdom is working to organize an annual summit for the Middle East Green Initiative.

He said this during a phone call to Chinese President Xi Jinping.
During the call, the two leaders discussed the Saudi Green Initiative and the Middle East Green Initiative, which were recently announced by the crown prince.
The initiatives called for partnerships with regional countries to face the environmental challenges in the region, improve the quality of life, and implement the largest afforestation project in the world.
The crown prince and the president discussed the contributions of these two initiatives toward achieving global targets to combat climate change, and their influential role in raising the quality of life in the region and the world at large.
The Chinese president said Beijing supported both initiatives, stressing the importance of their support by the international community.
Xi told the crown prince that China wanted to advance its strategic partnership with the Kingdom. The crown prince and the president also discussed cooperation in the fields of energy, trade and technology.

Prince Mohammed said his country was ready to strengthen the interconnection between the Kingdom’s Vision 2030 and China’s Belt and Road Initiative.
During the call, Xi said Beijing “is willing to work with Saudi Arabia and other members of the international community to build an equitable climate governance regime that is cooperative and beneficial to all,” Xinhua news agency reported.
The Chinese president also called for joint efforts to comprehensively and effectively implement “the Paris Agreement on climate change in accordance with the principle of common but differentiated responsibilities.”
The initiatives are set to apply a number of ambitious programs that will reduce carbon emissions by 60 percent in the region and plant 50 billion trees.
The initiative will also work to increase the percentage of protected land to more than 30 percent, exceeding the global target at 17 percent per country. It will reduce carbon emissions by more than 4 percent of global contributions through renewable energy projects that will provide 50 percent of the Kingdom’s electricity production by 2030. The two initiatives come in support of the existing environmental efforts the Kingdom has supported in previous years as it continues to face its own challenges at home from desertification, low rainfall, and debilitating dust storms.