Prince Abdulaziz bin Salman bin Abdulaziz, Minister of Energy, delivered today the following speech at the Future Investment Initiative 2019 being hosted by the Public Investment Fund in Riyadh: "Circular Carbon Economy for Sustainable Growth" Your Royal Highnesses, your Excellencies, Ladies and Gentlemen: Let me begin by welcoming you all to Saudi Arabia, and express how much we appreciate you attending the Future Investment Initiative. We look forward to discussing the transformational journey taking place in the Kingdom and to share ideas on sustainability of economic growth. I believe this has positive implications for the whole world. It is a pleasure to share the stage with such esteemed speakers and friends of Saudi Arabia. Ladies and gentlemen, Today, we are faced with a challenge of targeting growth and development in a sustainable way. Over the past 100 years, reliable and affordable energy – mostly in the form of hydrocarbons – contributed to lifting billions out of poverty. - But how sustainable is the current economic model? -Can it achieve what we aspire to? -And at what cost? -The question remains, how do we continue to grow and develop in a sustainable way? Saudi Arabia is one of the global energy leaders and produces over 10 million barrels per day and has around 267 billion barrels of reserves. It is one of the top 10 gas producers with over 9,000 billion cubic meters of proven gas reserves Considering our pivotal role, it is our responsibility to find solutions through innovation and collaboration to create a sustainable framework for growth. A holistic and pragmatic approach is needed to achieve more sustainability in the economic system. To this end, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia offers the concept of a Circular Carbon Economy. The Circular Carbon Economy is a framework where emissions of carbon from all sectors, and all types of greenhouse gases, are addressed through the 4Rs : reduce, reuse, recycle and remove. Such a closed-loop system, much like what happens in nature, will help restore the balance of the carbon cycle It offers a new way of addressing the challenges of sustainable development that implicitly values all options and encourages all efforts to mitigate carbon accumulation in the atmosphere while also facilitating global economic growth. Adoption of this holistic model is vital because, as important as renewables are, and as much progress as they have made in recent years, most analyses suggests the world cannot achieve a balance between sources and sinks through renewables and reduction alone. Much of the world's energy is consumed in sectors that are hard to decarbonize, such as heat, industrial processes and transport. So achieving a carbon balance will inevitably include fossil fuels, however their carbon emissions must be managed. This concept is proven and not new for Saudi Arabia. Historically the Kingdom used to flare associated gases coming from oil production, such as methane. But in 1980, we embarked on a major initiative to recover those associated gases and use them to produce a variety of chemicals. This has enabled the petrochemical industry in Saudi Arabia to create thousands of jobs, industrial cities and to contribute to GDP growth . It also fueled our power plants and desalination facilities. We estimate that more than 2.8 gigatons of CO2 equivalent have been removed from the atmosphere since then. Therefore, this has enabled a future economic circularity of greenhouse gases that will create value for carbon while meeting global sustainability goals. --More 14:18 LOCAL TIME 11:18 GMT 0014 www.spa.gov.sa/1989248
