By Hassan al-Rashid

Due to personal circumstances, I am currently away from my home land Qatar. However, during free time, I always try to read English newspapers in order that I may see how they portray my country from an English media perspective.

Recently, I was drawn to comments made in the Guardian newspaper against Qatar in their hosting of the World Cup in 2022. And in particular, the fuss about staging the major sport event in summer or winter and the labour humiliation caused by the construction companies.

Last month, I read in the Times newspaper about China and how they have produced a ‘master plan’ with a target to hugely reduce CO₂ emissions by 2020.

In this article was a ‘Bar Chart’ showing the worst offenders for CO₂ emissions. And it came as a big shock to me to know that my home country Qatar has had the highest CO₂ emission per capita in the world for the past 18 years!

Most of the these emissions were generated normally from natural processing, air conditioning, water desalination and electricity generation, making Qatar rank number one in the world with the highest CO₂ emission per person at almost 44 tonnes. In specific, this is six times more on a per person basis than China and the EU and 22% higher than the UAE and other GCC countries.

This made me think deeply about the ‘Bar Chart’ from an environmental point of view, in particular, the significance of how it could affect Qatar’s future, especially as my country is a large exporter of gas, petrochemical, and other products to the whole world, especially the EU.

I started to think about the worst-case scenario, which is if Europe remains for years to come in recession, high debt and inflation as well as high unemployment, how will the political party leaders in Europe convince their supporters and the tax payers about promises they have given either to freeze or reduce energy costs?

As a consequence why not impose a high tax tariff on the main gas/oil producers for their part in global warming!

We might end up again that Qatar is going to be blamed for its part in global warming, which in turn will lead to it being imposed a carbon tax in its export of gas and petrochemical products (eg. intermediate, finished products).

From my point of view, to avoid such a “predictable campaign” like what is happening for the 2022 World Cup , I would suggest the following steps :

1) Greenhouse gas emissions to be made part of the education curriculum.

2) As we depend heavily on gas as the main feedstock for our power generation plants (not coal as in other countries), these plants need to reassess its technology (gas turbine, etc).

3) To rethink about using other renewable energy sources, such as solar, wind, nuclear.

4) For any future JV new projects, we need to challenge the partners to assure that best practice technology is approved, thereby considering the green house foot print as the main criterion to accept any future technology/products.

5) Establish a five-to-10-year road map targeting CO₂ percentage equivalent to the world standard by 2030.

6) As the number of cars are increasing rapidly on a yearly basis, I suggest the following options are considered: a) specification of the automobiles and its fuel to be reviewed, b) The number of cars to be reduced. This could be solved by the future metro network, or by imposing a higher tax on the number of cars per family.

7) Imposing a cap tariff on the water and electricity consumption on Qataris.

8) Downstream projects to address the issue of separation, capturing and the storage of CO₂ and to generate value-added products, where the private sector can be involved.

9) Increase the green landscaping areas within Qatar.

10) Long term strategies for mobilising investment in renovation through imposing the green building specification in all new government buildings, industrial projects, as well as big private projects, especially renovation of some of the big buildings. (In Europe, around 40% of the total amount of energy consumed is in buildings, which equates to €100bn per year).

11) Institute a state-level prize for CO₂ emission researches.

12) Review domestic fuel prices, which are subsidised by the government for crude oil and diesel.

13) Environmental safeguards should be the prerequisite for any future funds and investments approached by lenders.

14) Ensure co-operation and collaboration exist between universities, research centres and industrial companies, so they can establish research projects on how to absorb carbon dioxide from the air.

 Hassan al-Rashid is a senior Qatari technocrat with decades of experience in the country’s petrochemical and oil and gas sectors. The views expressed are his own.