30 November 2012
BEIRUT: The Arab world might have some of the most energy inefficient countries in the world, but if they use their natural and human resources to their advantage they can become leaders in modern energy, believes the CEO of General Electric for the MENA region.
“A knowledge economy can solve the energy, water and food security problem – and it can address efficiency by creating jobs and improving skill sets,” said Nabil Habayeb, president and CEO of GE in the Middle East, North Africa and Turkey, which has been operating in the region for the past 80 years and has recently committed billions of dollars in research for sustainable energy projects. “The younger generation is worried about the crisis, which is good.”
“Maybe if you treat it as a crisis things will get done faster than if you treat it as a challenge,” he said.
The corporate leader and energy expert sees this as much as an economic issue as he does an environmental one, noting that key demands of the Arab Spring protests included not just unemployment but also access to basic resources such as electricity, to which 50 million Arabs still lack access. He also sees the opportunities in this frustration to transform the region from energy inefficient to one that uses its human and natural resources in a sustainable way.
“We realized it was a crisis when the Arab Spring started,” Habayeb said. “There are three challenges: security, energy and water, and efficiency and building capacity. How do we create jobs?”
Habayeb spoke to The Daily Star Thursday during the lunch break at the annual conference of the Arab Forum for Environment and Development. At the Phoenicia hotel, corporate leaders, environmental experts, academics and energy industry leaders gathered to discuss the importance of energy efficiency in the Arab world.
Some of the richest among them – the energy exporters of Qatar, the United Arab Emirates and Kuwait – create the largest per capita carbon footprints, while Yemen, the poorest, doesn’t consume enough to meet its needs. Meanwhile, Lebanon consumes (through generators) far more than it can produce.
Despite all of these obstacles, Habayeb says he is optimistic about the future of energy in the region, including his home country Lebanon, where GE has installed energy efficient Jenbacher gas turbines in the Bekaa Valley and the south. It has also has delivered Jenbacher gas engines for waste treatment facilities in Sidon (to turn garbage into energy) with the capacity to generate 2MW of power, and where GE is providing energy services to Electricite du Liban, including maintenance and repairs of installed turbines.
In the entire Middle East and North Africa GE has invested over $2 billion in research and development for their “ecomagination” products and technology last year – part of $10 billion invested in such research over the first half of the decade.
Indeed, what was once a relatively small movement among environmentalists is now what Habayeb believes is a major crisis that has reached the mainstream business community.
“Green is green,” Habayeb said, referring to GE’s catchphrase meaning that environmentalism makes money. “We do this for the environment and our shareholders. It’s not just social responsibility. We can make money out of a green environment.”
He added, “I’m optimistic. I think there’s a lot of potential with partnerships between the public and private sectors.”
Copyright The Daily Star 2012.
