Egypt's Ministry of Environment welcomed, on Monday, the "Green Middle East" initiative announced by Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, which aims to plant about 40 billion trees across the Middle East. The initiative, which will be put into effect in cooperation with countries in the region, will contribute to restoring about 200m hectares of degraded land, and reduce global carbon emissions by 2.5%. Egypt lauded this ambitious initiative, which indicates Saudi Arabia's attention which it attaches to the fields of environmental preservation and international climate action. Moreover, Egypt asserted its aspiration to actively cooperate with Saudi Arabia to activate and implement the green Middle East initiative, to support environmental action in the region. Earlier, Saudi Arabia had asserted its commitment to achieve a sustainable future by launching the Green Saudi and Green Middle East initiatives. Bin Salman said that the initiatives are set to apply a number of ambitious programmes that will reduce carbon emissions by 60% in the region, and plant 50 billion trees in the world's biggest afforestation project. He added, "As a leading global oil producer, we are fully aware of our responsibility in advancing the fight against the climate crisis, and that just as we played a leading role in stabilising energy markets during the oil and gas era, we will work to lead the coming green era." The initiative will also work to increase the percentage of protected land to more than 30%, exceeding the global target at 17% per country. It will reduce carbon emissions by more than 4% of global contributions through renewable energy projects that will provide 50% of Saudi Arabia's electricity production by 2030. The Saudi Crown Prince noted that the share of clean energy production in the Middle East currently does not exceed 7%, and technologies used in oil production are not efficient. He confirmed that Saudi Arabia will work with regional partners to transfer their knowledge and share their experiences, which will contribute to reducing carbon emissions resulting from hydrocarbon production in the region by more than 60%. He also said that the joint effort will achieve a reduction of more than 10% of global contributions.
