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The amount of jobs created in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) connected to the renewable energy sector increased by 300 percent last year, a Dubai-based official has said.
The growth came as a result of both government and private sector organisations increasing headcount as the Dubai government attempts to meet its goal of generating 7 percent of its total resources from renewable energy by 2020, said Ivano Iannelli, the CEO of Dubai Carbon, in a joint interview with Zawya and Thomson Reuters Projects on the sidelines of a government press conference on Thursday to launch this year’s State of Green Economy report.
The report highlighted progress made in different sectors in areas related to renewable energy and the green economy. Waleed Salman, a senior official from the Dubai Electricity and Water Authority (DEWA) and chairman of Dubai Carbon, a consultancy owned by Dubai government entities, said on the sidelines of the same press conference that currently 2.4 percent of DEWA’s total energy capacity comes from renewable sources.
The UAE government plans to provide 25 percent of its total energy from clean energy by 2030, a percentage it eventually seeks to grow to 75 percent by 2050.
“The key finding of the report is the increase in green jobs,” Iannelli said.
“Essentially, since all those (government) activities, all these ambitious strategies launched by Abu Dhabi (and) Dubai in the space of renewables, green economy, we have seen an... increase in green jobs… such as jobs in renewables, jobs in emission reductions, jobs that are very specific to the green space and not used for other purposes,” he added.
Iannelli said the Dubai government’s activities last year to increase its output from green energy have motivated private sector companies such as Tesla Motors that sells fully electric vehicles and solar products to hire employees in fields related to the green economy, which has boosted its job market.
“So Tesla comes and trains its engineers that would not (have happened) if, say, DEWA did not put an electric charger infrastructure… also there are companies serving electric chargers, all these (led) to about an increase of 300 percent in green jobs from 2016 to 2017,” Iannelli added. Last year, DEWA doubled the number of electric vehicle charging stations in Dubai.
Tesla also opened its first showroom in Dubai last July, Gulf News reported.
DEWA announced in October that it had signed an agreement with Dubai’s National Bonds, to set up a 2.4 billion UAE dirham ($653.4 million) green fund at the World Green Economy Summit (WGES) that Dubai hosted. National Bonds is a Sharia-compliant savings scheme that is 100 percent owned by Dubai’s sovereign wealth fund, the Investment Corporation of Dubai.
(Reporting by Yasmine Saleh and Anoop Menon; Writing by Yasmine Saleh; Editing by Michael Fahy)
(Yasmine.saleh@thomsonreuters.com,Anoop.menon@thomsonreuters.com)
For more data, analytics, tools and news on projects in the Middle East visit the Thomson Reuters Projects portal
Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles
Disclaimer: This article is provided for informational purposes only. The content does not provide tax, legal or investment advice or opinion regarding the suitability, value or profitability of any particular security, portfolio or investment strategy. Read our full disclaimer policy here.
© ZAWYA 2018
The growth came as a result of both government and private sector organisations increasing headcount as the Dubai government attempts to meet its goal of generating 7 percent of its total resources from renewable energy by 2020, said Ivano Iannelli, the CEO of Dubai Carbon, in a joint interview with Zawya and Thomson Reuters Projects on the sidelines of a government press conference on Thursday to launch this year’s State of Green Economy report.
The report highlighted progress made in different sectors in areas related to renewable energy and the green economy. Waleed Salman, a senior official from the Dubai Electricity and Water Authority (DEWA) and chairman of Dubai Carbon, a consultancy owned by Dubai government entities, said on the sidelines of the same press conference that currently 2.4 percent of DEWA’s total energy capacity comes from renewable sources.
The UAE government plans to provide 25 percent of its total energy from clean energy by 2030, a percentage it eventually seeks to grow to 75 percent by 2050.
“The key finding of the report is the increase in green jobs,” Iannelli said.
“Essentially, since all those (government) activities, all these ambitious strategies launched by Abu Dhabi (and) Dubai in the space of renewables, green economy, we have seen an... increase in green jobs… such as jobs in renewables, jobs in emission reductions, jobs that are very specific to the green space and not used for other purposes,” he added.
Iannelli said the Dubai government’s activities last year to increase its output from green energy have motivated private sector companies such as Tesla Motors that sells fully electric vehicles and solar products to hire employees in fields related to the green economy, which has boosted its job market.
“So Tesla comes and trains its engineers that would not (have happened) if, say, DEWA did not put an electric charger infrastructure… also there are companies serving electric chargers, all these (led) to about an increase of 300 percent in green jobs from 2016 to 2017,” Iannelli added. Last year, DEWA doubled the number of electric vehicle charging stations in Dubai.
Tesla also opened its first showroom in Dubai last July, Gulf News reported.
DEWA announced in October that it had signed an agreement with Dubai’s National Bonds, to set up a 2.4 billion UAE dirham ($653.4 million) green fund at the World Green Economy Summit (WGES) that Dubai hosted. National Bonds is a Sharia-compliant savings scheme that is 100 percent owned by Dubai’s sovereign wealth fund, the Investment Corporation of Dubai.
(Reporting by Yasmine Saleh and Anoop Menon; Writing by Yasmine Saleh; Editing by Michael Fahy)
(Yasmine.saleh@thomsonreuters.com,Anoop.menon@thomsonreuters.com)
For more data, analytics, tools and news on projects in the Middle East visit the Thomson Reuters Projects portal
Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles
Disclaimer: This article is provided for informational purposes only. The content does not provide tax, legal or investment advice or opinion regarding the suitability, value or profitability of any particular security, portfolio or investment strategy. Read our full disclaimer policy here.
© ZAWYA 2018
