Acknowledging the responsibility of the industry to protect the Earth, the Gas Exporting Countries Forum (GECF) is highlighting a number of environmentally-sound steps its Member Countries have taken on the occasion of the World Environment Day.
World Environment Day is celebrated every year on June 5 and provides an opportunity to raise global awareness on positive environmental action to protect nature and the planet.
This year’s World Environment Day is witnessing the launch of the UN Decade on Ecosystem Restoration (2021-2030), a global movement to prevent, halt and reverse the degradation of ecosystems.
Natural gas, as the cleanest among all available hydrocarbons, has assumed a renewed importance in light of efforts to stimulate economic recovery and embrace net zero goals.
“The GECF believes that natural gas, as an abundant, affordable and clean hydrocarbon source, has a central role to play in the energy transition while simultaneously supporting progress on several sustainable development dimensions including the guardianship of ecosystems, human health, and the economy,” said HE Yury Sentyurin, Secretary General of the GECF.
“These ideals are enshrined in the GECF Summit Declarations, adopted on the level of Heads of State and Government, the Organisation’s Long-Term Strategy, and environmental, social and corporate governance practices, and applied by the Member Countries. In the development of these strategic documents, the focus on environmentally sound business materialises through our participation in the G20 Ministerial Meeting on Energy Transition and Global Environment for Sustainable Growth, via close alignment with UNESCO and its Natural Sciences division in particular, as well as via active involvement in the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change with direct participation in the Conferences of Parties where our Forum enjoys an observer status since 2018.”
Qatar, the biggest exporter of LNG in the world, is reducing emissions from the use of its products in the transport segment and investing in environmentally-friendly fuels, which can be blended with existing fuels such as jet and diesel to reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from transportation and aviation. In Egypt, a Presidential Decree last year made it mandatory for all new cars to run on natural gas.
At the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum earlier in the first week of June, HE the Minister of State for Energy Affairs Saad Sherida al-Kaabi and President and CEO of Qatar Petroleum highlighted “Qatar “is using the best emission technology that’s available, monitoring methane emissions, doing carbon sequestration and storage and take this as something front and centre”.
In this context al-Kaabi emphasised that “there is this euphoria about the energy transition that everybody is getting excited, maybe overly excited, in discussing this issue. In some reports, I mean the International Energy Agency said that we shouldn’t invest in oil and gas. I think there is a very big danger that we are going into this kind of discussion where we understand that when we deprive the business from additional investments you have big spikes and you deprive nations”.
“We all have the responsibility to produce in a more environmentally sensitive way. But we need to be careful lest we deprive investment in oil and gas sector; that’s going to really harm humanity and the more than a billion people that actually don’t have electricity today.”
Inside the GECF’s Secretariat in Doha, Qatar, staff is encouraged to recycle and reuse material where possible.
In 2019, it signed a MoU with Qatar-based Elite Paper Recycling to support environmental protection and forests preservation.
ends
World Environment Day is celebrated every year on June 5 and provides an opportunity to raise global awareness on positive environmental action to protect nature and the planet.
This year’s World Environment Day is witnessing the launch of the UN Decade on Ecosystem Restoration (2021-2030), a global movement to prevent, halt and reverse the degradation of ecosystems.
Natural gas, as the cleanest among all available hydrocarbons, has assumed a renewed importance in light of efforts to stimulate economic recovery and embrace net zero goals.
“The GECF believes that natural gas, as an abundant, affordable and clean hydrocarbon source, has a central role to play in the energy transition while simultaneously supporting progress on several sustainable development dimensions including the guardianship of ecosystems, human health, and the economy,” said HE Yury Sentyurin, Secretary General of the GECF.
“These ideals are enshrined in the GECF Summit Declarations, adopted on the level of Heads of State and Government, the Organisation’s Long-Term Strategy, and environmental, social and corporate governance practices, and applied by the Member Countries. In the development of these strategic documents, the focus on environmentally sound business materialises through our participation in the G20 Ministerial Meeting on Energy Transition and Global Environment for Sustainable Growth, via close alignment with UNESCO and its Natural Sciences division in particular, as well as via active involvement in the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change with direct participation in the Conferences of Parties where our Forum enjoys an observer status since 2018.”
Qatar, the biggest exporter of LNG in the world, is reducing emissions from the use of its products in the transport segment and investing in environmentally-friendly fuels, which can be blended with existing fuels such as jet and diesel to reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from transportation and aviation. In Egypt, a Presidential Decree last year made it mandatory for all new cars to run on natural gas.
At the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum earlier in the first week of June, HE the Minister of State for Energy Affairs Saad Sherida al-Kaabi and President and CEO of Qatar Petroleum highlighted “Qatar “is using the best emission technology that’s available, monitoring methane emissions, doing carbon sequestration and storage and take this as something front and centre”.
In this context al-Kaabi emphasised that “there is this euphoria about the energy transition that everybody is getting excited, maybe overly excited, in discussing this issue. In some reports, I mean the International Energy Agency said that we shouldn’t invest in oil and gas. I think there is a very big danger that we are going into this kind of discussion where we understand that when we deprive the business from additional investments you have big spikes and you deprive nations”.
“We all have the responsibility to produce in a more environmentally sensitive way. But we need to be careful lest we deprive investment in oil and gas sector; that’s going to really harm humanity and the more than a billion people that actually don’t have electricity today.”
Inside the GECF’s Secretariat in Doha, Qatar, staff is encouraged to recycle and reuse material where possible.
In 2019, it signed a MoU with Qatar-based Elite Paper Recycling to support environmental protection and forests preservation.
ends
