Today's Edition
ABU DHABI (WAM)
The World Future Energy Summit 2024, hosted by Masdar, opens on Tuesday at the Abu Dhabi National Exhibition Centre (ADNEC). Set to begin a three-day run tomorrow, the 16th edition of the leading event for future energy and sustainability has a strong focus on advancing the change agenda laid down at COP28 in Dubai last November.
The Summit will host its most comprehensive knowledge-sharing programme to date, featuring more than 350 of the energy sector’s leading international experts, policymakers, academics, and future shapers. Each will deliver insights on how to navigate COP 28’s frameworks through five probing conferences and three dynamic forums.
“The combined speaker platform represents a high-density gathering of the industry’s foremost minds, each of whom will discuss and suggest potential pathways to achieving sustainability and renewable energy goals based on technology, changing policies, and evolving economics,” said Leen AlSebai, General Manager of RX Middle East and Head of the World Future Energy Summit.
“With a keen focus on the theme ‘The Energy To Lead’, this year’s Summit has emerged as a global think tank. Empowered by innovation, these experts and sector pioneers will bring to light solutions to our most crucial problems and cutting-edge solutions, which will inform the blueprints for a sustainable future. It will also firmly underline the UAE’s robust commitment to global sustainability and environmental cooperation.”
The Summit will feature six conferences focussing on Solar, EcoWaste, Water, Clean Energy, Smart Cities, and Climate & Environment, as well as a dedicated “Pathway to 1.5C” forum focused on outcomes from COP28 and two forums addressing Green Finance and e-Mobility.
The speaker platform reads like an almanac of the energy, commercial, and industrial sectors, featuring ministerial policymakers, scientists, financiers, business titans, digital disruptors, and agenda-setting climate change advocates.
Together they will probe ways to unlock investment and find innovative instruments to close the climate finance gap, how to further private sector engagement with regulators and governments, integrate carbon into decision-making and asset valuation, and increase adaptation and resilience financing.
They will also dig deep into various ways certain industries and sectors can contribute to tripling renewable power generation capacity to 11,000 GW, tripling nuclear energy by 2050, doubling energy efficiency this decade, reaching near zero-methane emissions by 2030, as well as cutting fossil fuels from the world’s energy production plans.
Delivering the opening address on guiding nations to a 1.5°C climate pathway will be Sheikha Shamma bint Sultan bin Khalifa Al Nahyan, President & CEO of the UAE Independent Climate Change Accelerators, followed by Francesco La Camera, Director-General of the International Renewable Energy Agency.
A running theme for day one, the Pathways to 1.5°C conference will also see Simon Birkebaek, Partner at BCG, discuss clean energy outcomes from COP28 and the road ahead, alongside a presentation by Mary Burce Warlick, Deputy Executive Director, International Energy Agency on delivering energy commitments and what actions are needed to meet Troika: Mission 1.5.
“To keep the goal of limiting global warming to 1.5 °C within reach, countries must quickly build on the important energy pledges they made at COP28. Now is the time to transform promises into actions,” said Warlick. “With even stronger international cooperation needed through COP29 and COP30, this Summit provides a crucial opportunity to share the latest data, best practices and toolkits to tackle common challenges on the road to a more secure and sustainable energy future.”
Other panel discussions will see speakers such as H.E. Eng. Saeed Ghumran Al Remeithi, Group CEO, Emirates Steel Arkan; Abdulnasser Bin Kalban, CEO, Emirates Global Aluminium; and Eng. Ali Al Dhaheri, MD and CEO, Tadweer Group discuss how to meet a 1.5°C climate threshold.
The Solar & Clean Energy Conference, also opening on day one, will see H.E. Eng Sharif Al Olama, Undersecretary for Energy and Petroleum Affairs at the UAE Ministry of Energy & Infrastructure (MoEI) open proceedings, with H.E. Ahmed Alkaabi, Undersecretary Assistant for Electricity, Water & Future Energy Sector at MoEI delivering the keynote address at the Water Conference.
This year’s knowledge programme also features its largest female participation, with women speakers set to bring a critical perspective to a range of issues from climate change to sustainable tourism, smart city technology to circular economy integration, workplace diversity to learnings from COP28. It will also host a dedicated panel discussion on female entrepreneurs leading decarbonisation innovation, and a dedicated area for its Climate Innovations Exchange (CLIX) initiative – a curated platform where female-led, run, or founded startups, as well as SMEs and innovators, can demonstrate game-changing products and solutions to a global audience.
