His Royal Highness Prince Mohammed bin Salman bin Abdulaziz, Crown Prince, Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Defense, leading the Kingdom's delegation to the summit of leaders of the G20 member states, participated in the 4th session of the summit on climate change, energy and the environment. HRH Crown Prince addressed the audience, thanking the Japanese G20 current presidency for paying attention to the sustainability of the climate, stressing that facing the effects of climate change is a global demand, as economic as well as population growth, increase the emissions affecting the environment. The Kingdom emphasizes the importance of balance and inclusiveness, including reducing greenhouse gas emissions and adapting to the adverse effects of climate change, he remarked. According to HRH, the Kingdom is working to develop a comprehensive and integrated system to provide energy through energy efficiency programs, and adopt a number of initiatives that took into account the comprehensiveness of conventional energy and renewable sources, as the Kingdom has launched, recently, several projects, in this respect, aiming to increase the share of renewable energy sources, as it is seeking to produce up to 200 GW and a play a relevant pioneer role. He added that the Kingdom envisions the need to integrate and exploit all energy sources and for its pivotal role in the world economy, as availability and accessibility of energy is a priority for us, pointing that with more than a billion of peoples without permanent energy resource and what the African continent, in particular, is suffering due to lack of access to energy resources, we stress the need for cooperation and support for the least developed countries. In this regard, HRH Crown Prince referred to the Kingdom's initiative, kicked off in 2008, under the title: Energy for the Poor program. HRH Crown Prince pointed out that the Kingdom emphasizes the importance of the security and safety of energy supplies, which are necessary to meet the basic needs of the global economy. In this respect, he drew attention, that the need is apparent to work on developing strong institutional frameworks with wide scope to enhance stability, in the oil markets, and that the Kingdom is stressing the importance of strengthening energy security and condemned all terrorist practices affecting global energy security, aimed at achieving political objectives, meanwhile the Kingdom seeks to maintain energy security through local and international cooperation, joint studies and partnerships, in addition to regional interconnection, to ensure the security and safety of navigation routes and supplies, he commented. HRH Crown Prince indicated that the Kingdom considered it very important to develop sustainable transport strategies, through finding comprehensive solutions, including using of low carbon fuels. Due to the increasing bonds binding the pivots of energy and water, the Kingdom underscored the importance of working to reach sustainable solutions to fetch water and energy, HRH Crown Prince stated, stressing the importance of enhancing necessary measurements to face off increasing pressures on the environment, in general, pointing out, in this respect, that the Kingdom is seeking to reduce associated carbon dioxide emissions and turn them into a sustainable economic system known as the circular carbon economy, as such a system is an extension of the biosynthetic and natural gases cycle of the Earth, which illustrate our efforts to implement our national contributions, under the Paris Agreement. He pointed out that the marine environment is of particular interest to the Kingdom, especially, for conservation of coral reefs, in the Red Sea, and that KSA will launch creative initiatives, in this regard. In this context, HRH Crown Prince took the opportunity to commend the Japanese current chairmanship of the G20, for paying great attention to marine environment and addressing plastic waste, in general. The Kingdom has recently adopted a National Environment Strategy to promote environmental protection, biodiversity and natural resource sustainability, establishing an environmental fund to support it, and forming five specialized environmental centers, aimed at promoting compliance with environmental standards, pollution reduction, wildlife development and cover vegetarianism and combating desertification. HRH Crown Prince reaffirmed the Kingdom's support and encouragement for innovation and invention in the field of energy, in order to reach highly efficient systems, without prejudice or discrimination against any specific source. To achieve this, there is a growing need to stimulate investment in technologies and innovation by launching an investment platform that offers financially and economically viable and feasible opportunities, he underscored. The Kingdom emphasizes that technology and investment, not top-to-down dictated policies, are the best way to transform growth and climate challenges into opportunities, stressing that is the approach we lead, in the Kingdom.
