JEDDAH, DEC 3 – Saudi Arabia is investing in green innovation to transform its deserts, but it has presented challenges for the project on climate solutions.
This week, Riyadh is hosting the United Nations COP16 conference on drought and desertification – a topic close to home for Gulf governments, where officials say they aim to restore 40 million hectares of degraded land.
But while the country is a major investor in climate technology, it has not abandoned its long-established oil defenses, and critics say its gestures toward environmental friendliness offer only limited benefits.
Saudi Arabia accounts for nearly 75 percent of Middle Eastern investment in climate technology startups worldwide, according to a 2023 report by auditors PwC.
But its investment in green technology is skewed towards energy, with US$363 million going to climate-friendly energy solutions – almost 10 times more than it invested in innovations related to food, agriculture and land use, PwC said.
On a sprawling campus in the desert north of Jeddah, a project that has proven useful in arid countries is using microorganisms to reduce energy costs for treating waste water.
“The treatment facility aims to clean and treat waste water in an energy-neutral or even positive way”, said environmental scientist and engineering academic, Peiying Hong, who oversees the facility at the King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST).
The process, he said, depends on microorganisms that convert carbon into gas methanewhere it is collected and used to produce energy for the facility.
Filtered water from the process can be used to grow micro algae to produce feed for livestock, or to irrigate plants and trees to combat desertification”, he added. – AFP
