(MENAFN- Khaleej Times) By 2030 there will be more than eight billion people in the world; by that time the consumption of energy water and food will also rise by 40 to 50 per cent.
Abu Dhabi: By mid century world population is expected to reach nine billion triggering a double demand in energy water and food consumption. For the past few years the world has experienced increasing natural disasters caused by climate change and the United Nations has warned that more bad weather could lead to serious hunger crises.
Dr Sultan Ahmed Al Jaber Andy Brown and Suhail bin Mohammed Al Mazrouei UAE Minister of Energy during the Powering Progress Together Forum in Abu Dhabi. — KT photo by Nezar Balout
Already a third of our energy is used for producing food which in turn requires large amount of water consumption.
“By 2030 there will be more than eight billion people in the world; by that time the consumption of energy water and food will also rise by 40 to 50 per cent” said Dr. Sultan Ahmed Al Jaber CEO of Mubadala Energy and chairman of Masdar.
“If we are to achieve a sustainable future we can no longer approach the energy water and food issues separately” he also stressed.
Dr. Jaber opened Shell’s Powering Progress Together forum on energy water and food on Thursday which is a series of dialogues held several times a year in different countries. The forum arrived in Abu Dhabi and the Middle East for the first time attended by government officials and Masdar university students. Over the first half of the day two panels of experts opened the dialogue with the audience on how to best address the “stress nexus” as the world’s resources of energy water and food have become to be known.
“At Shell we believe in the role gas will play in the future for energy supply and for reducing carbon dioxide emissions” said Andy Brown upstream international director of Royal Dutch Shell.
“In 2012 seven million people died from air pollution and the use of gas will cut the levels of carbon dioxide emissions” he added.
Burning fossil fuels (petroleum) creates carbon dioxide emissions the world’s most harmful air pollutant the main cause of climate change. Despite government efforts to reduce it for years the carbon dioxide emissions have been on the rise and if not reduced the world will face global warming by 3.7 to 4.8 degrees Celsius.
Gas is a cleaner fossil fuel and environmentalists stress the solutions lay in energy efficiency and alternative green sources of energy.
Improving energy efficiency using less energy to provide the same level of energy service is integral to managing and restraining growth in energy consumption.
In the UAE and the Middle East in general a large amount of energy is spent on desalination which has become the main water resource here. In fact in Abu Dhabi between 35 and 45 per cent of water desalination cost is for energy. Even though it is such a precious resource water is often wasted through inefficient consumptions. Speakers at the forum pointed out that a GCC food company uses 1000 litres of water to produce just one litre of milk!
The UAE remains the world’s highest water consumer with 600 liters per person per day.
According to Mohammed Yousef Al Madfaei executive director of Integrated Environment Policy and Planning at Environment Agency — Abu Dhabi the three sources of water here are ground desalinated and recycled water.
“Ground water is being preserved for the future generations. By 2018 we expect to use 100 per cent of recycled water in Abu Dhabi which will reduce the need for desalination” he said.
“We believe a water budget should be in place to properly manage out three water resources” added Madfaei.
He pointed out that the Ministry of Energy and Water already works on ways to reduce water consumption by 30 per cent by 2021. These will include a change in tariffs and possibly the cut or at least reduced government subsidies for Emirati water and electricity consumers.
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