Chairman of the Board of Directors of Saudi Aramco Yasir bin Othman Al-Rumayyan stressed that climate change represents one of the biggest challenges for humanity in this century, which made His Royal Highness Prince Mohammed bin Salman bin Abdulaziz, Crown Prince, Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Defense, launch the Saudi Green Initiative.
He pointed out that since the launch of Saudi Vision 2030, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia has taken important steps to expand the scope climate action and protect the environment. For example, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia has set a target to generate 50% of its electricity from renewable energy resources by 2030.
Speaking to the Saudi Press Agency (SPA), Al-Rumayyan said that climate change challenges cannot be addressed in isolation of other challenges, which requires a global effort. To address the issue, HRH Crown Prince launched the Middle East Green Initiative to push forward collective action among countries.
He also pointed out that the Saudi Green Initiative aims at unifying the government's efforts to increase reliance on clean energy and face the challenges of climate change, adding that Saudi Aramco announced its ambition to reach net zero and limit gas emissions, that cause global warming, in its facilities by 2050, which is an important step for the company and the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia alike.
As for Saudi Aramco's plans to realize its ambitions to reach net zero in gas emissions, the Chairman noted that the company will announce more details in the upcoming sustainability report that will be issued during the second quarter of 2022. He said that Aramco owns a unique platform that can address climate change and support energy transformation, especially that the company's classification for carbon and methane emissions is among the lowest in the world in the extraction and production sector.
In this regard, he said that to realize Saudi Aramco's ambitions to reach net zero, the company needs to preserve and enhance its performance on the long term and reduce the impact of its emissions as it keeps growing, noting that the company had already focused on developing a set of technologies that can help it realize its goals.
Al-Rumayyan also noted that Aramco invests in renewable energy resources, such as Sudair project for solar energy, which will be one of the biggest ventures of its kind in the world and planting millions of trees, such as the mangrove trees that act as natural basins to absorb carbon dioxide.
