Sharjah conference calls for strategic choices on region’s oil

Sharjah: The second day of the Arab Forum for Environment and Development (AFED) conference highlighted the future of oil and gas and called upon policy-makers in Arab countries to diversify the region’s economies away from continued reliance on one type of fuel.

While oil and gas revenues have been the major source of income in most Arab countries, especially in the Gulf region, speakers at the conference discussed the need to reform natural gas pricing mechanisms so they can play a greater role in the Arab energy transition.

Pointing out that the oil and gas sector makes up about 36 per cent of the total Arab GDP, AFED Secretary General Najeeb Saab referred to recommendations which support the AFED report on Sustainable Energy, saying that Arab countries can enhance the sustainability of their energy sectors by making a change in their strategic choices.

These choices include improving energy efficiency, exploiting the huge potential of unused renewable energy resources, and harnessing oil and gas reserves. The conference also emphasised the need for private sector participation in energy supply infrastructure investments. Such investments will facilitate the mobilisation of local equity and debt financing, and develop more flexible legal instruments.

Policy-makers were also urged to address energy subsidies and reform pricing policies in order to give incentives for the involvement of cleaner energy technologies.

High electricity demand

A number of Arab countries also announced plans to add nuclear power to their energy systems as a way to meet the growing demand for electricity in the region.

Speakers at the conference said that the ability of Arab countries to manage the entire lifecycle of nuclear power was questionable as critical issues such as safety, security and permanent storage of radioactive waste remain to be resolved.

Sustainability initiatives on efficient resource management were presented by the Saudi Efficiency Centre, Abu Dhabi Urban Planning Council, GIZ projects, ACWA Power and Cristal.

The high electricity consumption has been expanding on average by 8-10 per cent a year since the early 2000s. The AFED report shows that this growth, which is driven by relatively rapid economic, demographic and urbanisation growth rates in most countries in the region, puts considerable stress on both domestic fossil fuel imports and export-oriented hydrocarbon resources.

The report also showed that figures on the ecological footprint in Arab countries found that Arabs consume twice what their own ecosystems can regenerate. Three Arab countries, Qatar, Kuwait and the UAE, were found to have the biggest ecological footprint in the world.

The Forum concluded its sixth annual conference on sustainable energy in Arab countries at the American University of Sharjah after hosting around 800 delegates from 52 countries, representing governments, corporations, international and regional organisations, academic, research institutions, NGOs and media.