tracked to become a knowledge-based economy able to compete with the First World. This is the view of Dr. Muhammad Salem Sabban, adviser to the Minister of Petroleum and Mineral Resources and head of the Saudi delegation to the climate change negotiations. Speaking on the second day of the Jeddah Economic Forum (JEF) at a session on energy and the environment, he said the Kingdom's leaders know about the importance of diversifying income streams. He said that King Abdullah has planned to put the country on the map in terms of developing into a knowledge-based economy. Sabban added that Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries are tasked with establishing an important vision for clean energy. “We hope we will be able to establish a network on this during the coming three years,” he said, adding that the Gulf countries and the Kingdom are concerned with stabilizing prices on the world's oil markets. He said the Gulf countries have vast reserves – a total of 23 percent of global reserves – and are able to meet global demands for fossil fuel. “The Kingdom has proven to the international community that it is dependable as a source of energy.” He said Saudi Arabia has realized that education is the basis of its development and reform. Developing Saudi skills into creative ones will only be achieved with education based on modern knowledge and technology usage, he said. He said that the King Abdullah University of Science and Technology is a model of this method of education and scientific research. This will reflect positively on the development of energy resources, including solar energy that will be utilized widely in water desalination, he added. Sabban said that he has noticed the efforts of the United States and the European Union to increase dependence on renewable energy and said oil producers are the victims of this new global tendencies “that often come in unfair forms”. The second speaker, Dr. Adnan Shihabaddeen, the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries' (OPEC) Acting Secretary General and Director of Research, said energy is more important to developing countries than advanced ones given the requirements of development. He said seven trillion barrels of oil can still be extracted and that there are several potential discoveries. He said that the global economic crisis had affected oil consumption in 2009 by 20 percent. He said the Kingdom had done well by preserving oil and gas investments, which had not been affected by the crisis. “Challenges must be turned into opportunities,” he said, calling for expanding the use of solar energy in water desalination especially in GCC countries. Shihabaddeen said he did not believe that nuclear energy would be a competitor soon to oil, “but it might have an important role in 40 or 50 years from now”. “Such energy requires a long-term international commitment and it involves several problems and ambiguities, especially when it comes to disposing of environmentally damaging waste.” Daniel Nelson, President of Nelson Insight Strategic Initiatives, said demand for oil on world markets will go on despite the expansion in the use of solar energy. As developing countries will consume large quantities of oil, prices must be balanced, because high prices would put an additional burden on these countries, he said.
