H E Saad bin Sherida Al Kaabi, Minister of State for Energy Affairs and President and CEO of Qatar Petroleum.
H E Saad bin Sherida Al Kaabi, Minister of State for Energy Affairs, President & CEO of Qatar Petroleum (QP) said that Qatar’s contributions to mitigating climate change and other environmental issues should be seen more broadly, given the fact the country alone meets nearly one-third of the world’s clean energy demand, rather than seeing things only in domestic and per capita perspective.
Speaking in a plenary session at the Doha Forum, which concluded on Sunday, Al Kaabi stressed that Qatar is supplying clean energy to a large number of countries where more than half of the humanity live. These countries are replacing coal and other heavier fuels with natural gas to curb carbon emissions. So these factors should also be taken into account while debating Qatar’s CO2 emissions.
He noted that Qatar, as part of efforts in combating environmental challenges, is taking a lot of initiatives at domestic level which include building a big solar power plant in Qatar, which is one of the largest in the region; replacing all the diesel buses by introducing a new fleet run on CNG; and developing facilities and latest technologies to capture carbon and improve efficiency.
“One of our strategies is to achieve energy efficiency as part of our commitment in mitigating environmental challenges. We are also taking a lot of other initiatives to ensure that we have less carbon particles in the air and investing heavily and deploying the best available technology,” Minister said in response to a question related to Qatar’s carbon footprint.
Al Kaabi added: “In addition, we are also working to address the issue of methane emissions in our industry. We have signed up with large industry partners to look at this critically, measure the methane emissions and study how we can do away with it as much as possible.”
With regard to the North Field LNG expansion project, which will boost Qatar’s LNG production capacity from the current 77 million tonnes per annum (mtpa) to 110mtpa by 2024, he added that the project is being implemented in a very responsible way taking into considerations all the possible impact to the environment and marine life.
“We are responsible people with families and kids who want to live in a good environment. That’s why when we are executing a project we make sure that we use the cutting-edge technology, which is proven and that money can buy to ensure the least possible impact to the environment.”
The Minister also noted that articles in the media that highlight Qatar’s per capita CO2 emissions are “unfair” given the fact the country’s population is very small and any number divided by that gives unrealistic picture. And Qatar’s contribution as the largest supplier of LNG should be taken into consideration while debating on Qatar’s per capita carbon emissions.
“Qatar supplies natural gas, the cleanest forms of fossil fuel known to the mankind so far, to a large number of countries across the world, including Japan, China, India, Pakistan, Taiwan, South Korea, Thailand, Kuwait, Dubai (UAE), Jordan, Egypt, Turkey, Italy, Spain, France, Poland, Belgium, the UK, Germany, Holland and many others. Their respective consumption of Qatari gas ranges between 5 and 30 percent of the total. They burn clean gas to replace coal, biomass and other heavier fuels, aiming to reduce carbon emissions,” said Al Kaabi.
