The Presidency of Meteorology and Environment (PME) displayed its projects for the safety of the environment at an exhibition on the sidelines of the Gulf Environment Forum that concluded here Tuesday. Naif Shalhoub of the awareness department at the PME explained that Saudi Arabia was limiting its reliance on oil resources or fossil fuel by placing more emphasis on renewable energy from sunlight. “This is the main project on which we are working at the moment. We all know that the Kingdom depends on petrol, but in the future when the deposits of petrol are reduced we want to be able to tap other types of energy sources such as solar energy,” he said. “At King Abdullah University for Science and Technology, solar energy research is under way, and I think in 20 to 30 years we will have enough solar energy that we will be able to export it,” he explained. By 2025, he said, Saudi Arabia could produce more solar energy than oil and in order to make this possible, all municipalities and government departments are working together and cooperating with each other. “The other thing on which we are concentrating is climate change. Natural disasters cause major problems and that is why we want the public to know that climate change is for everybody now. We cannot stop the change but can adapt to it. We are, therefore, creating awareness among people on ways to protect themselves,” he said. The program to create legislation and regulations for a cleaner environment is already under way, he added. “We have also been working for the past four years on a project of cloud seeding, especially in the southern part of the Kingdom and Riyadh,” said Shalhoub.
