UAE-Israel greentech collaboration can transform the post-coronavirus world

By OMAR MOHAMED KHALIFA AL SUWAIDI and ASHER FREDMAN

The international market for environmental technologies is expected to surpass six trillion dollars by 2025. Expanding UAE-Israel cooperation in the field of green technology today can help ensure that both countries play a leading role in the coming era of sustainable development.

Western economies are counting on massive investments in green energy, infrastructure and transportation to power their post-COVID recovery. According to the European Green Deal, the EU will mobilize at least one trillion euros in sustainable investments over the next decade, in line with its goal of carbon-neutrality by 2050. US President Joe Biden’s infrastructure plan includes investments of over 600 million dollars geared toward reaching a 52% reduction in greenhouse gas pollution by 2030.

However, achieving these very ambitious goals will require more than significant investments in new infrastructure. It will require significant advances in new technologies. Here is where UAE-Israel collaboration can make a critical contribution.

Israel’s greatest strength is its cutting-edge start-up innovation. According to the latest Global Cleantech Innovation Index, Israel ranked second in the world in emerging cleantech innovation, and sixth in cleantech overall. The report notes that Israel “has developed an entrepreneurial population, excellent research facilities, and a wealth of...capital to create an extraordinary pool of innovative start-ups in the cleantech sphere.”

While the UAE is developing a vibrant cleantech start-up ecosystem as well, its greatest strengths to date have been in the successful realization and implementation of some of the world’s most advanced green technologies. The UAE leadership took a visionary decision 15 years ago to make major investments in renewable energy and clean technologies. As a result, the UAE has already developed two of the world’s largest solar plants, and will soon break ground on a third. Abu Dhabi is home to the Middle East’s first facility for carbon capture and storage, and to Masdar City, an international pioneer in sustainable urban living.

Rapidly expanding and deepening UAE-Israel greentech cooperation, in the spirit of the Abraham Accords, could put our two countries at the forefront of the green transformation, with far-ranging impacts on both the local and global levels.

ON THE local level, this cooperation can assist our countries in achieving our domestic climate goals. The UAE faces the acute challenge of combining accelerated economic and population growth, with the ambitious green targets set by the country’s leaders. For example, the UAE aims to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions by 23.5% and its energy consumption by 40% by 2030, while increasing waste treatment to 85% by 2035, and improving the National Air Quality Index score to 100% by 2040. Similarly, the Emirate of Abu Dhabi is aiming for 32% water savings by the end of the decade.

Israel has also set far-reaching environmental goals. At President Biden’s recent Climate Leaders Summit, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu declared that Israel will go from sourcing 10% of its energy from renewable sources today, to over 33% by 2030. Israel’s Environmental Protection Ministry recently proposed the goal of reducing Israel’s greenhouse gas emissions by 80-85% by 2050.

Innovations in fields such as energy efficient buildings, green construction, renewable energy storage, AI-powered utilities, water reuse, low-carbon mobility and others are key to enabling economic growth which is both rapid and climate-friendly. Both of our countries will need to deploy new solutions in order to ensure that as they lead the world in opening up after the pandemic, they also lay the groundwork for long-term environmental resilience and health.

On the global level, Israeli-Emirati collaboration may hold the key to the next technological breakthroughs that can turn the vision of a green transformation into a reality. By bringing together the entrepreneurial spirit, capabilities and human and financial capital of our nations, we can develop the innovations that will improve the well-being, health and environmental footprint of people around the world.

In February of this year, our companies, Gulf-Israel Green Ventures and United Stars Group, signed the first ever UAE-Israel agreement aimed at bridging between our greentech ecosystems. This includes bringing innovative solutions developed in one country to the other, and connecting entrepreneurs, researchers, companies and financial partners on both sides.

Ultimately, as we told a recent Bank of America panel on UAE-Israel relations, joint investments and financing should be used to encourage close collaboration between Emirati and Israeli start-ups, incubators, R&D hubs and corporations. Such shared funding should be used to facilitate cooperation from early-stage development to commercialization and scaling.

The greentech sector is set to help transform the world in the post-pandemic era. If we bridge between the Israeli and Emirati ecosystems, the next great, globally-disruptive green technology might say “Made in the UAE and Israel.”