Saudi minister stresses need to focus on cleaner energy 

(MENAFN - Arab News) Saudi Arabia has affirmed its commitment to the principles laid down by the UN convention on climatic change and support to the technological research and development in the field of cleaner energy and better environment.

Petroleum and Mineral Resources Minister Ali Al-Naimi stressed the need to focus on cleaner and more efficient use of fossil fuels while concurrently developing alternatives in a two-day conference on climatic change in Beijing yesterday.

"The most pragmatic strategy for the better protection of the environment is to concentrate on cleaner and more efficient use of fossil fuels on which we will continue to depend, while concurrently developing alternatives," Al-Naimi said while addressing the opening session of the high-level conference on Climate Change began in Beijing yesterday.

Al-Naimi also warned against undue haste in abandoning the hydrocarbons as a source of energy while looking for solutions for climatic change.

"The calls for moving away from fossil fuels as a means of addressing potential climate change do not represent a practical solution to the global warming issue," Al-Naimi said at the meeting in which representative of nearly 100 governments, international and nongovernmental organizations participated. "We believe that a wide variety of existing and future technologies can enable the continuation of fossil fuels to meet societal needs for sustainable development, and do so in a cleaner manner," Al-Naimi said.

"We are meeting at a crucial time in an attempt to find options to address challenges of climate change and adequate supplies of energy and sustainable economic development and we believe firmly that the technical options as one of the most important factors will be helping us met these challenges," the minister said.

The Saudi minister also expressed his concern at the lack of progress in technology transfer from developed countries to developing countries despite a number of studies that have been completed to identify the barriers to such technology transfer. "These barriers include access to financing for the technology that is currently limited. There are also the issues of capacity building and the transfer of technology, expertise as well as hardware besides creating other enabling conditions. Surely there are also barriers such as Intellectual Property Rights and others. However, I see no reason why they could not be overcome with adequate political will," the minister said.

Saudi Arabia also stressed the need for a new institutional body under the Conference of the Parties to the UNFCCC (United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change) to address all issues related to technology research, development, transfer and diffusion besides capacity building. The minister also supported the proposal by Group 77 and China to establish an executive body of technology.