Saeed Mohammed Al Tayer, MD and CEO of the Dubai Electricity and Water Authority (DEWA), met with Adnan Ameen, the CEO of the 28th session of the Conference of the Parties to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (COP28).
They discussed how to improve their collaboration and reviewed DEWA’s efforts to support the UAE in hosting COP28. This event, which is the largest international climate action event, will take place at Expo City Dubai later this year. COP28 aims to work with all parties and partners to build on the outcomes of the Paris Agreement and keep the global average temperature rise this century as close as possible to 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels.
Al Tayer explained that COP28 is significant with the declaration of President His Highness Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan of 2023 as the ‘Year of Sustainability’ in the UAE under the theme ‘Today for Tomorrow’. His Highness Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Vice President, Prime Minister and Ruler of Dubai, said that COP28 would be the most important event hosted by the nation in 2023 and that they were confident that the UAE would organise the most successful global environmental conference.
This underlines the great importance the wise leadership attaches to addressing climate change and launching social, economic, and ecological development plans to make the UAE among the largest countries in the world to invest in clean and renewable energy projects.
Al Tayer explained that the UAE was the first country in the Middle East and North Africa to launch a strategic initiative to achieve net-zero carbon emissions by 2050. DEWA is pioneering in sustainability, innovation, and future-shaping in all its projects and initiatives to achieve the goals of the Dubai Clean Energy Strategy 2050 and the Dubai Net Zero Carbon Emissions Strategy 2050 to provide 100 percent of clean energy by 2050, with a focus on innovation, technologies of the Fourth Industrial Revolution, digital transformation and the circular economy as key enablers for achieving sustainability. DEWA’s strategy also aligns with the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals 2030.
DEWA is implementing several projects; the most prominent is the Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum Solar Park, the largest single-site solar park in the world based on the Independent Power Producer (IPP) model with investments totalling AED50B.
When completed, the solar park will reduce over 6.5 million tonnes of carbon emissions annually. Its clean energy production capacity has reached 2,127 megawatts (MW), increasing clean energy in Dubai to about 14.6 percent of the total production capacity.
Adnan Amin praised DEWA’s efforts in supporting global efforts to address the challenges of climate change by using clean and renewable energy solutions as one of the key pillars to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
