The Ministry of Climate Change and Environment (MOCCAE) has held its fifteenth session of the National Dialogue on Climate Ambition (NDCA) at Emirates Global Aluminium headquarters in Al Taweelah.
The fifteenth assembly focused on the innovative solutions that progress the decarbonization of the aluminium sector to meet the growing global demand for this sustainable metal as the UAE is the fifth-largest aluminium producing nation in the world.
The NDCA, launched in May 2022, is a platform to define and raise sectoral climate ambition and advance all-inclusive participation in the UAE Net Zero by 2050 Strategic Initiative.
The NDCA’s monthly stakeholder assemblies are dedicated to engaging a specific sector, with the aim of exploring sectoral requirements, priorities, and future direction to amplify contributions to reducing greenhouse gas emissions.
The session engaged stakeholders from across the aluminium value chain, including the Aluminium Stewardship Initiative, leading can-makers and waste management companies, to discuss the role of aluminium in boosting the UAE’s circular economy.
In her opening keynote speech, HE Dr. Amna bint Abdullah Al Dahak, Minster of Climate Change and Environment highlighted the potential the aluminium sector holds to move the UAE towards its Net Zero ambition. She said: “The aluminium sector is a major asset in helping the UAE achieve a low-carbon future; it is critical to many of the industries central to low-carbon development.”
Her Excellency added: “As a key enabler to reducing emissions in numerous sectors, we know that demand for aluminium will rise. We must find ways to meet this demand, whilst reducing the environmental impact of aluminium production.”
Abdulnasser Bin Kalban, Chief Executive Officer of Emirates Global Aluminium, said: “We are honoured to host the 15th National Dialogue for Climate Ambition session at EGA’s headquarters in Al Taweelah. At EGA, we recognise that producing metal essential for the development of a more sustainable society is not enough. It also matters how sustainably aluminium is produced. Many of the decarbonisation challenges we face are shared with other industries, and we must work together to address these challenges.”
During the session, two companies signed the UAE’s Climate-Responsible Companies Pledge: Tadweer Group, and Yellow Door Energy. This takes the total number of signatories to 140. The pledge was launched in 2022 to help the UAE government engage with entities keen to make an active contribution to the nation’s climate neutrality movement and align their efforts to achieve the UAE’s common objective.
By signing the pledge, companies commit to measuring and reporting their greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions in a transparent manner, developing ambitious science-based plans to reduce their carbon footprint, and sharing these plans with the UAE government to contribute to achieving the national net-zero target by 2050. They must also factor in climate change mitigation and adaptation as core values and principles of their businesses and operational models, and adopt an all-inclusive approach that engages society in developing their net-zero plans.
The event included a panel session focused on increasing aluminium beverage can recycling rates in the UAE and closed with three roundtables discussing the development of the aluminium scrap industry in the UAE, opportunities to reduce the aluminium sector’s greenhouse gas emissions through circularity, and the use of aluminium to reduce emissions in different sectors.
During the visit to EGA, Her Excellency Dr. Amna bint Abdullah Al Dahak inaugurated the region’s first 100 per cent renewable energy powered industrial data centre in Al Taweelah.
EGA developed two data centres in Jebel Ali and Al Taweelah to further deploy artificial intelligence and automation solutions at the heart of the company’s industrial operations, while reducing EGA’s total IT energy consumption by 50 per cent.