Saudi Arabia and UK have made significant progress in clean-energy collaboration, says envoy

SHARM EL-SHEIKH: Saudi Arabia and the UK have made significant progress in their collaborations on clean-energy plans in the past year, according to the British envoy to the Kingdom.
“It’s a very important part of our agenda with all Middle Eastern countries (but), as the ambassador to Saudi Arabia, I think discussions on clean energy have been a very important part of the relationship and there is also a policy discussion about how do we achieve our global ambitions,” Neil Crompton told Arab News.
“Those are very practical discussions, so we signed a memorandum of understanding on clean energy last year, and a number of important developments have taken place and a number of very important Saudi investments in the UK.
“We’ve had really good discussions about green finance, so we were very pleased when the PIF (Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund) launched a $3 billion green bond in London last month, the first green bond ever by a sovereign wealth fund and the first 100-year bond ever, by anyone.”

Crompton was speaking during the UN Climate Change Conference, COP27, in Sharm El-Sheikh, Egypt, where he said he was happy to have attended the second Saudi Green Initiative Forum, which took place last week on the sidelines of the global summit.
“I was lucky to attend (the first SGI forum) last year,” he said. “Last year was very important; we had a number of really important announcements, particularly the crown prince’s commitment to Saudi Arabia reaching net-zero by 2060.
“I think this year we’ve heard a lot of really good plans about how Saudi Arabia intends to implement those plans, and they’ve adopted the COP slogan, ‘From Ambition to Action,’ and I think I like the focus on implementation.”
Several important announcements were made by Saudi authorities, including the Ministry of Energy, during the summit, including plans for the development of the largest facilities for carbon capture in the world, and financial measures that would allow businesses to participate in carbon auctions, Crompton said.

Officials from the UK and Saudi Arabia also held a number of joint sessions during COP27, including Prince Abdulaziz bin Salman, the Saudi minister of energy; Adel Al-Jubeir, the Kingdom’s climate envoy; Adair Turner, who is part of the UK’s energy-transition team; and Alok Sharma, the former COP president. Discussions also took place with Egyptian Foreign Minister Sameh Shoukry, who is the current COP president, and representatives from the UAE, which will host COP28 next year.
“Alok Sharma and Prince Abdulaziz talked about how the UK and Saudi Arabia last year developed really close cooperation,” Crompton said. “Sharma paid tribute to the personal role that Prince Abdulaziz played in the G20 last year in helping raise levels of ambition.”
Saudi Arabia and the UK were not expected to make any further announcements in the coming days, Crompton said, but there are a number of things they are trying to develop, including more cooperation between their governments, businesses and universities. This is “a natural area” that they want to develop, he added, as it is good for energy security and collaborations on the green agenda.
“I think it’s a very important initiative by the Saudi government,” he said of the SGI. “I’m very proud I came and we look forward to going to the third Saudi Green Initiative next year and then, I hope, the Middle East Green Initiative, too.”