Mahmoud Mohieldin on where the private sector ends and government begins when it comes to climate action

Good morning, MENA, and what a busy day it has been for climate news as we hit UAE hump day. From climate diplomacy to major green desalination initiatives, we break it all down below. But first…

OUR BIG STORY this fine morning- Where does the private sector’s role end (and that of government start) when it comes to climate change? Our friend Mahmoud Mohieldin, Egypt’s UN Climate Champion, has an answer in the second part of our two-part interview.

And if you’re planning to attend COP27, don’t miss his essential guide to what you can expect. The story appears in this morning’s Newsmakers section, below.

ALSO- The EU’s full court press to lock in MENA energy supplies continues this week and next, as Germany’s Chancellor Olaf Scholz is in our neck of the woods. And while LNG exports is number one on his shopping list, he’s also looking to pick up some of our green hydrogen.

THE BIG CLIMATE STORY OUTSIDE THE REGION is coming out of New York, where diplomats are gathering for the UN General Assembly.

SMART POLICY- Developing countries to push for global climate tax on wealth nations at the UN General Assembly: Some of the countries most vulnerable to climate change want to ask for a “climate-related and justice-based” global tax to fund payments for loss and damages, The Guardian wrote yesterday, citing leaked documents. This could consist of a global carbon tax, a tax on airline travel, a levy on carbon-intensive bunker fuels used by ships, adding taxes to fossil fuel extraction, or a tax on financial transactions, the paper notes. The countries have reportedly prepared a paper for discussion at this week’s UN General Assembly.

UN sec-gen calls for action to help developing countries: UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres called for debt relief measures and increased climate financing and investment from public and private sectors at an event at the General Assembly yesterday. “We need a reformed financial architecture that benefits developing countries, providing critical financing and debt relief,” he said at the SDG Moment. “This is the only sustainable pathway to address the obscene inequalities that exist in every country, while ensuring that the world doesn’t slide into a recession.”

US Climate Envoy John Kerry warned against long-term investments in gas projects in Africa, telling Reuters that long-term projects may not be viable post-2030 when many developed countries should have transitioned to mostly renewable energy sources. “We are not saying no gas,” Kerry said on the sidelines of an African environment ministers' conference in Senegal’s Dakar. “What we are saying is, over the next few years, gas replaces coal or replaces oil,” he said.

This could set up a clash with African nations at COP27. Many players on the continent are asserting their right to continue investing in oil and gas, arguing that the move is key to their development even as some wealthier nations step up calls to phase out fossil fuels.

Also at the UN: A “first of its kind” database tracking fossil fuel production, reserves and emissions — which launched yesterday ahead of the talks, PBS reported. The Global Registry of Fossil Fuels features data from over 50k oil, gas and coal fields in 89 countries — covering some 75% of global reserves, production and emissions — and can be used by the public. It’s the first global inventory of countries' remaining reserves.

So, what happens if we combust all the things? The database shows that burning these reserves would unleash some 3.5 tn tonnes of greenhouse gas emissions, or “7x the remaining carbon budget to cap global heating at 1.5°C,” AFP noted yesterday.

The biggest potential source of emissions is right here in our neighborhood: Of the 50k individual fields monitored, the most potent source of emissions is the Ghawar oil field in Saudi Arabia, which churns out some 525 mn tonnes of CO2 each year.

Subscribe to Enterprise

***
YOU’RE READING ENTERPRISE CLIMATE, the essential regional publication for senior execs who care about the world’s most important industry. Enterprise Climate covers everything from finance and tech to regulation, products and policy across the Middle East and North Africa. In a nod to the growing geographical ambitions of companies in our corner of the world, we also include an overview of the big trends and data points in nearby countries, including Africa and southern Europe.

Enterprise Climate is published at 4am CLT / 5am Riyadh / 6am UAE Monday through Thursday by Enterprise, the folks who bring you Enterprise Egypt, your essential 6am and 3pm read on business, finance, policy and economy in Egypt and emerging markets.

Subscribe to Enterprise Climate here or reach out to us on climate@enterprisemea.com with comments, suggestions and story tips.

***

HAPPENING TODAY-

The Egyptian Center for Economic Studies is hosting a webinar on adaptation readiness tomorrow in partnership with Egyptian private-sector bank CIB. The webinar will discuss adaptation readiness plans and the challenges that Africa faces on its road to climate change adaptation. You can register for the webinar here.

CIRCLE YOUR CALENDAR-

A Spanish business delegation will be in Cairo on 27-28 September for the Egypt-Spain Multilateral Partnership Forum. The two-day event, which will take place at the Sofitel Gezirah Hotel, will bring together Spanish and Egyptian business execs in electricity, renewable energy and water treatment.

Our friends at HSBC are hosting an energy transition webinar series next Tuesday-Thursday (27-29 September). The series will look at the “latest climate analysis in relation to the global energy market and transition to net zero” in six different sessions covering energy security, what is required to ensure the success of COP27, financing and investment needs for the energy transition, and the scaling up of renewables in the region, among other topics. You can register for the series here.

WANT MORE on the region’s energy transition? Catch this op-ed in EnterpriseAM by HSBC’s Group Head, Center of Sustainable Finance and Head of Climate Change Middle East, North Africa and Turkey, Zoe Knight on to the capital that’s needed to help drive that shift.

The World Cement Association’s (WCA)’s global conference will take place from 25-28 September at Emirates Towers in Dubai, UAE. The event will be attended by COP26 UN Climate Champion Nigel Topping, among other attendees, panelists,and keynote speakers. You can register for the event here.

The Wetex and Dubai solar show will run 27-29 September at the Dubai World Trade Center.

Dubai will host the World Green Economy Summit on 28-29 September. The summit wants to provide a platform to build consensus around the potential of technologies, policies and youth that could drive the green economy transformation.

Fitch Solutions hosting a webinar on Saudi Arabia’s energy transformation next Thursday, 29 September at 12:00pm KSA. You can register here.

Check out our full calendar on the web for a comprehensive listing of upcoming news events, national holidays and news triggers.

Rich countries have barely made a dent in the USD 100 bn per year they’ve promised emerging markets to help address climate change. And the real price tag? It’s in the USD tns, says UN High-level Climate Champion for Egypt Mahmoud Mohieldin. With so much still left to do, the big questions are: How do we tackle the funding gap? And whose responsibility is it to fix: Government or the private sector?

In this second part of our talk, Mohieldin tackles the hard questions on climate finance: from the role of the private sector (and mid-sized business in particular) vs the role of governments — and the eternal to climate debt vs investment debate. He also gives us a sneak preview on what to expect during COP27.

Did you miss part one of our talk? Tap or click here to read it.

KEY TAKEAWAYS-

• The private sector is best-positioned to lead on “mitigation” (cutting our collective carbon footprint) while governments need to lead on “adaptation” (tackling the fallout, including the washing away of coastal areas and how to keep cities liveable);
• More debt is not the answer — developed economies need to invest in mitigation and adaptation across emerging markets;
• COP27 is just the beginning — Mohieldin will work through COP28 with whoever the UAE presidency appoints as its champion;
• Mohieldin provides a day-by-day overview of what you can expect if you’re attending COP for the first time.

ENTERPRISE: What’s the role of the private sector versus that of the state in plugging the financing gap?

MM: With the climate gaps being in the USD tns — not USD bns — the private sector isn’t the singular answer, but it has a big role.

Business more or less knows its way on how to engage in mitigation, decarbonization, solar projects — like Benban in Egypt or Ouarzazate in Morocco. Private businesses are investing in wind farms, and in the case of Egypt, in green hydrogen and ammonia. Those are all private-public partnerships (PPPs). And I’m saying “private” first in PPPs because the private sector brings the technology and the finance while the public sector provides land and the regulatory framework.

ENTERPRISE: Does the private sector have a role to play in adaptation?

MM: I think it’s struggling there. What are the commercial benefits? They’re not as clear in all aspects of the adaptation work. Businesses exist to turn a profit. Responsibly, sure. But a profit. So if you look at the nexus of energy, water, food and agriculture, I think you can see room for the private sector to do nicely on adaptation.

ENTERPRISE: So what about the state?

MM: Well, that’s the elephant in the room. Public finance in developing economies is responsible for a huge part of the climate action agenda, especially in adaptation, and also in mitigation, where we see all of this investment in solar, wind and green hydrogen. That’s either public or through PPPs.

I would say that mitigation needs really to be given more to the private sector to lead, domestic and foreign, under the regulatory framework of the public sector with some room for development finance institutions.

But adaptation is mainly the responsibility of state budgets. My argument here is that we need state budgets in developing countries to be fully aligned with the principles of sustainability — at a minimum. This then needs to progress to a shadow budget for sustainability or, on a great day, an SDG or sustainability-linked budget that includes infrastructure, health, education, resilience, governance. Anybody who benefits from the state budget should be aligned with the sustainable development goal (SDG) priorities for the current challenges and for the future.

ENTERPRISE: You spoke earlier about the need to do all of this without adding to debt…

MM: Absolutely. More than 60% of finance for climate action is coming from debt instruments. I’m concerned that just c. 12-13% of this debt-based finance is concessional. In a world that faces a variety of debt challenges, with the rising cost of investment and with rising interest rates. We need debt-reduction mechanisms and the emphasis instead needs to be on investment.

Look, it’s not fair to ask countries that were not responsible for the deterioration of the climate to borrow commercially. I’ve been saying this for years, and the simple reality is that today countries of the developing world are one of three things: Those with a debt management problem; those with a debt management crisis; and those with a debt management catastrophe. The reality is that debt issues can be handled and there are technical and innovative solutions to do that. So what I’m saying is: Don’t add to the problem.

ENTERPRISE: What does debt reduction look like?

MM: Debt reduction mechanisms include, of course, debt swaps. There is a new generation of debt swaps, and I’m happy these will be discussed at our COP27 finance day. Not just linked to projects, but linked to KPIs. The new idea is to link debt reduction to your nationally-determined contributions (NDCs). So that will take care of the problem of low and high transaction costs.

Then there’s the creation of carbon markets. I’m happy that Egypt is working closely with African entities, the LSE and in the Singapore Stock exchange to build a carbon market tailored to the needs and priorities of developing economies. This will benefit from some of the most advanced carbon markets in the world, which happen to be now in Europe. We need to benefit from the experience of Europe not just to “carbon copy,” if you will, the structure of the carbon market, but to be more innovative and tailor it to African needs.

ENTERPRISE- You recently wrote a piece about greenwashing and the argument, advanced by the Economist, that ESG needs to be boiled down just to emissions.

MM: The debate about ESG funding and concerns about greenwashing are important, but that doesn’t mean you throw the baby out with the bath water. First, saying ESG won’t save the planet is reductionist. And second, there is a lot of work to be done under the ESG umbrella to bring industry and finance and regulators to engage in meaningful talks. That’s how you get the private sector lined up — ESG is at the center of that.

ENTERPRISE- Are business leaders in Egypt behind when it comes to thinking of climate compared to, say, those of other MENA countries? To European countries?

MM: We are where we are. It’s about three things here: First, the extent of knowledge and exposure in the business community. How many times have they attended relevant big meetings and conferences? For many business leaders and heads of mid-sized enterprises, this will be the first COP they ever attend in person — and perhaps even the first COP they follow.

Secondly, it’s about the incentive structure. To what extent does the law and regulatory framework of the financial sector encourage the business community and the financial services industry to take climate seriously? At the end, business responds to carrots and sticks — everywhere, not just in Egypt or the Middle East.

Third, it’s about the personal convictions of business leaders that it is possible to do well and do good at the same time. This needs to go beyond CSR, and beyond intermittent contributions to society. It’s about factoring sustainability into your business and your supply chain. And incentives will not just come from within the borders of the country. Incentives will matter massively to your ability to export, where global markets care about your carbon footprint, about how you are conducting and financing your business.

I was in discussions with some of the leading business and finance players in Egypt, including heads of the federations of the banks and of industry, and the chamber of commerce. We talked about the potential and the possible missed chances if everyone — not just them as leaders, but everyone — in the community doesn’t get involved.

People like that are exposed to thinking on climate action because of their positions, their travel, their attendance of meetings and conferences. But it’s about reaching out to everyone else to get them involved.

I think it’s important to remember that mid-sized enterprises are always ignored in discussions, and not just in Egypt. The large players and the SMEs get all the attention, but the mid-sized businesses? They’re the creators of jobs and they’re the great exporters of the future. To address this problem, we’re doing a competition across 27 governorates based on six categories: large, midsized, small / micro (related to the decent life initiative), women-led, startups, and community-based projects. We’ll have a multi-month competition to pick the smartest and greenest of these businesses — we’re picking three of each type. So country-wide, you’ll see 18 companies taken to Sharm El Sheikh. This is about creating the basis of a governorate-level investment map.

We’ll be doing this competition every year to promote knowledge sharing with lots of investment in training the trainers, with a new digital presence to help educate the community going forward.

ENTERPRISE: So what will COP27 be like from the point of view of an Egyptian CEO attending for the first time?

MM: This is a summit, the 27th in a series, as the name suggests. It is not a conference. Your readers need to mark their agendas from 6-18 November and then select the meetings and events that they’re most interested in attending, that are most relevant to them. There are many events that are open and others that are invite only. They need to register and they need to select the sessions that matter to them.

The world leaders’ summit takes place 7-8 November, so people will need to arrive on 5 or 6 November. At the leaders’ summit, you’ll hear from heads of state and government — presidents and prime ministers and also from the UNFCCC and others in the UN system.

Then the fun begins. There are two types of events: COP27 presidency events and then organized climate action events (scroll to the bottom of the page here for the calendar). The thematic days will be generally very interactive:

• Finance day on 9 November — we;ve talked a lot today about climate finance;
• Science, youth and future generations day on 10 November;
• Decarbonization day on 11 November, and there’s lots to discuss here, from energy and mobility to steel, cement and building materials — there is a lot of innovation happening here that should be of interest to your readers;
• Adaptation and agriculture day takes place on 12 November;
• Gender and water day will take place on 14 November;
• Energy and civil society day is 15 November — you can expect energy to get a lot of attention, for obvious reasons;
• Biodiversity day is 16 November, and that’s also the day we’ll focus on the transportation sector;
• Human settlement and solutions day is 17 November, and that’s when we discuss sustainable cities, green buildings and resilient infrastructures and more.

What all of these days and discussions have in common is that the focus is primarily on implementation. It’s about putting in place the data systems we need. It’s about leadership at all levels. And it’s definitely about finance.

Egypt and Danish shipping giant Maersk could cooperate on a USD 15 bn project to produce clean fuel for ships, Ittihadiya said yesterday following talks between President Abdel Fattah El Sisi and Maersk CEO Soren Skou. The statement said El Sisi directed the government to start working with the company to set up a national network to produce and distribute green energy and fuel for ships, providing no further details on how the two sides will cooperate. The project is set to create more than 100k jobs, according to the statement.

What they said: Egypt could be a main hub for supplying ships with green fuel in the region, Skou said, according to the statement.

REMEMBER- The government is aiming to position Egypt as a regional hub for green energy, with the government making moves to capitalize on investment momentum ahead of COP27. Major global companies have signed USD 18 bn worth of preliminary agreements to establish green ammonia and hydrogen projects in Ain Sokhna this year.

This is Maersk’s second venture in Egypt in two months: Maersk signed an agreement with the Suez Canal Economic Zone (SCZone) to invest USD 500 mn to expand the Suez Canal Container Terminal (SCCT) in East Port Said port in August.

Neom announces major desalination project that could give its green economy a shot in the arm: Saudi Arabia’s Neom plans to build a desalination plant by 2024 that will not only be entirely powered by renewable energy, but that would also bolster plans to produce and export green hydrogen in a big way, according Peter Terium, CEO of Enowa, its water and energy subsidiary.

100% renewables powered: “The desalination project will be a benchmark in sustainability because it will be powered by 100% renewable energy,” Terium told Arab News on the sidelines of the Future Desalination International Conference last week. “The first thing would be bringing a large wind and solar field into NEOM, and then we need to add to that,” Terium added.

The project will help get green hydrogen plans off the ground: He also implied that the water processed by the plant will be used to supply Neom’s upcoming green hydrogen production plant — potentially the world’s largest utility-scale green hydrogen project. The facility — a JV between ACWA Power and Air Products — is expected to produce 650 tonnes of green hydrogen each day and 1.2 mn tonnes a year of green ammonia when completed in 2026, ACWA Power notes.

And with it exports: “We are in a position where we can export to any place where green hydrogen is needed and cannot be produced,” Terium told the newspaper.

Cue the giant, man-made lake: Terium did not disclose the planned size of investment or the anticipated output of the desalination plant, but noted that water from the project will be used to create an artificial freshwater lake in Trojena.

MEANWHILE, OVER IN THE UAE…

The issued a tender yesterday for two “low-carbon” desalination plants. The Emirates Water and Electricity Company (EWEC) called yesterday for developers to bid on building two new “low-carbon” reverse osmosis water plants, according to a EWEC statement. The project will involve the development, financing, construction, operation, maintenance, and partial ownership of the two plants — which form part of EWEC’s Abu Dhabi Islands Reverse Osmosis Independent Water Project. EWEC already operates six reverse osmosis desalination plants.

What do we know about the new plants? They’ll be located on the islands of Saadiyat and Hudayriat and will use reverse osmosis to provide some 455k cubic meters of water a day — enough to supply up to 180k households, the statement estimates.

Up to 40% ownership is up for grabs: Whoever executes the project would own up to 40% of a special purpose vehicle (SPV) that will then enter into a long-term water purchase agreement with EWEC, the statement notes. The Abu Dhabi government will hold the remaining equity in the project.

SOUND SMART- Is reverse osmosis really low-carbon? It all depends on what kind of energy is powering the tech: Though developments are underway to make reverse osmosis less energy intensive, the process itself generally relies on electricity generated by fossil fuels, notes a recent article written by ACWA Power’s CEO Paddy Padmanathan and shared by the World Economic Forum. Using renewable energy to power this process can significantly reduce the cost and environmental impact of reverse osmosis, he adds. In general, reverse osmosis has “two major environmental drawbacks”: high energy requirements (which lead to greenhouse gas emissions) and the release of brine (which harms marine ecosystems), note several academic studies, including one from September 2022.

Germany is coming to MENA in full force to lock in energy supplies — and some of it will be green: German Chancellor Olaf Scholz is due to visit the UAE, Saudi Arabia and Qatar on a two-day trip starting on Saturday, with energy cooperation “high on his agenda,” Bloomberg notes a German government spokesman saying at a Berlin press conference yesterday. Scholz’s visit would be the latest move in a full court press by Europe to convince MENA countries to increasing energy exports to Europe. The continent is looking to cushion fallout from the Russia-Ukraine war. The conflict drove up energy prices, a development exacerbated by a forthcoming ban on Russian oil that will take supplies off the table heading into winter — and by Russia’s shutdown of a key natural gas pipeline to the continent.

The main purpose of the visit is to boost LNG exports, but green hydrogen is also a priority for Germany. Plans are underway for the UAE to start exporting green hydrogen to Germany, with a “first test delivery” arriving in Hamburg last week, Germany’s economy ministry said on Thursday. “The pilot delivery lays an important foundation for medium-term imports of hydrogen, which will then also be green,” the ministry was reported as saying. In addition to green hydrogen, Adnoc had also sent an initial pilot shipment of blue ammonia to Hamburg from a new low-carbon ammonia plant that will produce 1 mn tons per year, as we noted earlier this month.

SMART POLICY- This is a once-in-a-generation opportunity to become part of Europe’s energy mix — and we need to push for long-term contracts. Scholz’s trip follows a similar visit by European Council President Charles Michel, who was in Saudi Arabia last week to drum up energy imports, including some from green hydrogen. Saudi officials pushed for the signing of long-term contracts for renewable energy investments, including for green hydrogen exports, as we noted yesterday.

ON THE FLIPSIDE-

Greece is courting Mideast investment in the green economy: UAE Economy Minister Abdulla bin Touq Al Marri reiterated his country’s interest in investing in Greece, saying the Emirates are looking at renewable energy, infrastructure, agriculture through a joint EUR 4 bn investment fund. Al Marri’s statements to the press came during the Thessaloniki International Fair (TIF) which wrapped up on Sunday, the Athens-Macedonian News Agency (ANA) reports.

…Ditto, India: Indian Commerce Minister Piyush Goyal was in KSA this week to drum up investment in green hydrogen and other initiatives, according to a ministry statement. Saudi Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman had pledged USD 100 bn in investments in India.

Look upon my works, ye mighty, and weep: Egyptian NGO VeryNile built a 7.5-tonne pyramid using nearly 250k plastic bottles collected from the River Nile, the initiative said on Facebook on Sunday. Over 45 days, volunteers used kayaks to collect recyclable waste, which was later compressed into trash blocks to build a pyramid. The statement is meant to raise awareness about the river’s pollution in the lead up to COP27.

KUDOS- Since 2018, VeryNile has collected 100 tonnes of recyclables by employing 46 fishermen whose livelihoods have suffered thanks to pollution in the river.