Next week, global leaders will gather in Glasgow at the UN’s climate change conference, COP26, to discuss how to reduce the devastating impact that global warming and climate change are having on our planet. This year to date has seen raging wildfires in North America, Australia, Europe, and Russia, deadly floods in Germany and Belgium, and droughts across the United States, Brazil, and Madagascar. Climate change and its knock-on effects on multiple nation states and economies are impacting the world at an accelerating rate and further highlights the need for an energy transition to a low-carbon world. Related environmental, social and governance (ESG) issues have become key concerns for international businesses and their stakeholders. Larry Fink, the head of Blackrock, the world’s largest asset manager, has been vocal that “climate risk is investment risk” and placed sustainability at the centre of its investment approach1.
Unsurprisingly countries in the Middle East & Africa (MEA) – Diligencia’s region of focus – are also now increasing their efforts to tackle the issue of global warming with their own new targets and initiatives. Economies which are heavily reliant on the production and consumption of fossil fuels, for example in the Gulf, arguably have most to lose and this has prompted a significant interest in new technologies from carbon capture to hydrogen energy production. In less developed countries in sub-Saharan Africa there is an opportunity to leapfrog traditional energy infrastructure by harnessing renewable energy to bring power to remote communities. All this in a region that has an abundance of the required raw materials (wind, sunshine) to take advantage of clean energy technology.
To mark COP26 and the ongoing global conversation around the need to tackle climate change, Diligencia will publish over the coming weeks a series of blogs and white papers on clean energy initiatives in the Middle East & Africa. Our aim is to contribute to the debate by highlighting the initiatives and innovations taking place in the region, and crucially the organisations that are leading the way.
Please let us have your feedback on these blogs and send any requests or suggestions for future publications that would assist you and your organisation to ceo@diligenciagroup.com.
My hope is that we can help showcase some of what is currently being achieved in the MEA region and how we can all participate in meeting what is undoubtedly the single biggest challenge of our lifetimes.
Yours faithfully,
Nouri Bakkali
Founder & Managing Director