Global energy crisis is a ‘management’ issue, says Crescent Enterprises CEO Badr Jafar

Badr Jafar, the CEO of Crescent Enterprises, at the WEF discussion of philanthropy. (WEF/Valeriano Di Domenico)
Short Url
Updated 21 January 2023
Follow

Global energy crisis is a ‘management’ issue, says Crescent Enterprises CEO Badr Jafar

  • Problem is the lack of conducive policies to make sure energy reaches necessary markets, says UAE-based CEO
  • Governments need to learn to solve supply issues with long-term conducive policies, Badr Jafar tells Arab News 

DAVOS: As the world grapples with its most serious energy crisis since the Second World War due to the war between Russia and Ukraine, Badr Jafar, chief executive officer of UAE-based Crescent Enterprises, told Arab News he believes it is actually more of “a management crisis.”

“The reality is, when you refer to it as an energy crisis, you give the impression that it is somehow a problem with the actual energy source. The problem is, of course, the lack of conducive policies to make sure that the energy reaches the (necessary) markets,” Jafar said, speaking on the sidelines of the World Economic Forum’s Annual Meeting in Davos. “And this is related, fundamentally, to many, many years of underinvestment in critical sources of energy, in order to provide energy security to large parts of the world.”

The headlines speak for themselves. Residents in the UK have been seeing ads suggesting coal furnaces as a replacement for electric or gas heating in their homes as a way to cut costs, while Europeans have been warned to brace for tough winters ahead.

“That’s why I refer to it as a management crisis — not to be facetious, but because we need to learn,” he said. “Policymakers need to learn to solve these problems with long-term conducive policies, and not short-term politics. (If you try) to address these challenges with short-term politics, this is going to be the result.”

Every year at Davos, curated panels sound the alarm on global warming, climate change, and the need to curb the world’s dependence on oil. But little has actually changed. Ironically enough, new research commissioned by Greenpeace found that private jet emissions quadrupled during last year’s conference. Of the 1,040 private jets that landed, 53 percent were making trips of less than 750 km that could easily have been made by train or car, with the shortest flight clocking in at only 21 km.




US special presidential envoy for climate (right) speaks during a session titled Philanthropy: A Catalyst for Protecting Our Planet at the WEF meeting this week. (WEF/ Valeriano Di Domenico)

Attendees — and the wider world — were berated by UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres in his speech on Wednesday. “We are flirting with climate disaster,” he said. “Every week brings a new climate horror story. Today, fossil-fuel producers and their enablers are still racing to expand production, knowing full well that their business model is inconsistent with human survival.” 

Jafar concurs, but doesn’t see it as solely a climate issue, rather one that interlinks with the environment.

“It is a climate-nature nexus, which, of course, the world needs to come to terms with. Supporting and enabling a greener evolution of our energy systems is an imperative,” he said. “Not just on a regional level, but on a global (level, there) has to be a concerted effort across business, policymakers and civil society.”

Despite countries across the globe ratifying climate acts, promising to cut down on emissions and find better, cleaner sources of energy, more needs to be done across the board.

“I think growth and climate are two sides of the same coin. And the edge of that coin, if you will, is conducive policy to make sure that we are pursuing low emissions, but not low growth,” Jafar said.

With the UN Climate Change Conference, COP27, having taken place in Egypt in November, and with COP28 to be hosted by the UAE later this year, many see now as the ideal time to “set the stage for 2035 for the region to become a leader and pioneer,” as the WEF’s head of Middle East and North Africa, Maround Kairouz, put it in an earlier interview.

“The UAE has been doing that by building out renewable energy. It's already supported and invested in at least 20 gigawatts, I believe, of renewable energy and has a goal to increase that to 100 gigawatts by 2030,” Jafar said.

Indeed, the UAE Net Zero by 2050 strategic initiative was announced in 2021, making the Emirates the first country in the Middle East and North Africa to commit to a target of net-zero emissions.




Crescent Enterprises CEO Badr Jafar at the WEF Annual Meeting 2023 in Davos-Klosters on January 17, 2023. (WEF / Valeriano Di Domenico)

Jafar also cited global philanthropy and faith-based giving as other integral forms of investment that have not been expanded to their full potential.

“Climate philanthropy is growing rapidly. It’s grown by three times over the last five years, and it can grow significantly in the years to come,” he said. 

“We need to create awareness and we need to create alliances. This is what COP28 will also do — help to create an alliance of philanthropists working with family offices and other creative capital actors to come together to really unite, in furtherance of our net-zero, nature-positive goals.”

Jafar claims that there are moves underway in emerging markets to make a big difference in the years to come. 

“One is greater institutionalization of philanthropy in these markets,” he said, “The second is massive intergenerational wealth transfer; in Asia alone, approximately $5 trillion (will pass) from one generation to the next.

“And the third is a greater appreciation of the interconnectedness of the climate crisis with other systems like health, food security, national security, and, of course, social justice.”

Jafar believes that such developments will mean the world witnesses “a big change and a big uptick in philanthropic engagement, but also climate philanthropy.”

 


Hamas military arm releases new video of Israeli hostage in Gaza

Updated 10 sec ago
Follow

Hamas military arm releases new video of Israeli hostage in Gaza

The man identified himself as an Israeli hostage held in Gaza

JERUSALEM: The military arm of the Palestinian militant group Hamas released a video Saturday of a man identifying himself as an Israeli hostage held in Gaza since the October 7, 2023 attack on Israel.
In the video, whose date cannot be verified, a man addresses US President-elect Donald Trump in English and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Hebrew.


The military arm of the Palestinian militant group Hamas released a video Saturday of a man identifying himself as an Israeli hostage held in Gaza since the October 7, 2023 attack on Israel. (AFP/File)

Gaza rescuers say 3 aid workers killed in Israel strike

Updated 30 November 2024
Follow

Gaza rescuers say 3 aid workers killed in Israel strike

  • The agency said the aid workers killed were Palestinian employees of World Central Kitchen
  • The US aid group did not immediately respond to AFP requests for comment

GAZA: Gaza’s civil defense agency said three aid workers were killed in an Israeli air strike in the Hamas-run territory on Saturday but the Israeli army said it killed a “terrorist.”
The agency said the aid workers killed were Palestinian employees of World Central Kitchen. The US aid group did not immediately respond to AFP requests for comment.
The Israeli army said it had “struck a vehicle with a terrorist that took part in the murderous October 7 massacre,” referring to militant group Hamas’s unprecedented attack on Israel last year.
“The claim that the terrorist was simultaneously a WCK worker is being examined,” it added in a statement.
Civil defense agency spokesman Mahmud Bassal said the bodies of “at least five dead were transported (to hospital), including (those of) the three employees of World Central Kitchen.”
“All three men worked for WCK and they were hit while driving in a WCK jeep in Khan Yunis,” Bassal said, adding that the vehicle had been “marked with its logo clearly visible.”
The Israeli army insisted its strike in the main southern city hit “a civilian unmarked vehicle and its movement on the route was not coordinated for transporting of aid.”
In April, an Israeli air strike killed seven WCK staff — an Australian, three Britons, a North American, a Palestinian and a Pole.
Israel said it had been targeting a “Hamas gunman” in that strike but the military admitted a series of “grave mistakes” and violations of its own rules of engagement.
The October 2023 attack resulted in the deaths of 1,207 people, most of them civilians, according to an AFP tally of Israeli official figures.
Israel’s retaliatory military offensive has killed 44,382 people in Gaza, according to figures from the territory’s health ministry which the United Nations considers reliable.


Several wounded in two Israeli strikes in south Lebanon, health ministry says

Updated 30 November 2024
Follow

Several wounded in two Israeli strikes in south Lebanon, health ministry says

  • Later on Saturday, another person was injured in a separate Israeli strike on Al Bisariya
  • The Israeli military said it had attacked a Hezbollah facility

CAIRO: An Israeli strike on a car wounded three people, including a seven-year-old child, on Saturday in the south Lebanon village of Majdal Zoun, the Lebanese Health Ministry said in a statement.
Later on Saturday, another person was injured in a separate Israeli strike on Al Bisariya, which lies near the southern Lebanese city of Sidon, the ministry said.
The Israeli military said it had attacked a Hezbollah facility in Sidon that housed rocket launchers for the armed group.
It added that it had also hit a vehicle in southern Lebanon loaded with rocket-propelled grenades, ammunition and military equipment as part of its actions against ceasefire violations.
A truce came into effect on Wednesday, but both sides have accused each other of breaching a ceasefire that aims to halt over a year of fighting.


West faces ‘reckoning’ over Middle East radicalization: UK spy chief

Updated 30 November 2024
Follow

West faces ‘reckoning’ over Middle East radicalization: UK spy chief

  • MI6 head Richard Moore cites ‘terrible loss of innocent life’
  • ‘In 37 years in the intelligence profession, I’ve never seen the world in a more dangerous state’

LONDON: The West has “yet to have a full reckoning with the radicalizing impact of the fighting, the terrible loss of innocent life in the Middle East and the horrors of Oct. 7,” the head of Britain’s foreign intelligence service MI6 has warned.

Richard Moore made the comments in a speech delivered to the British Embassy in Paris, and was joined by his French counterpart Nicolas Lerner.

Moore said: “In 37 years in the intelligence profession, I’ve never seen the world in a more dangerous state. And the impact on Europe, our shared European home, could hardly be more serious.”

Daesh is expanding its reach and staging deadly attacks in Iran and Russia despite suffering significant territorial setbacks, he added, warning that “the menace of terrorism has not gone away.”

In October last year, Ken McCallum, the head of Britain’s domestic intelligence service MI5, said his agency was monitoring for increased terror risks in the UK due to the Gaza war. More than 40,000 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza in over a year of fighting.

In Lebanon, a 60-day truce agreed this week between Hezbollah and Israel brought an end to a conflict that has killed thousands of Lebanese civilians.


Israel military strikes kill 32 Palestinians in Gaza, medics say

Updated 30 November 2024
Follow

Israel military strikes kill 32 Palestinians in Gaza, medics say

  • Among the 32 killed, at least seven died in an Israeli strike on a house in central Gaza City

The Israeli military said it killed a Palestinian it accused of involvement in Hamas’ October 7 attack on Israel in a vehicle strike in Gaza, and is investigating claims that the individual was an employee of aid group World Central Kitchen.
At least 32 Palestinians were killed in Israeli military strikes across Gaza overnight and into Saturday, with most casualties reported in northern areas, medics told Reuters.
Later on Saturday medics said seven people were killed when an Israeli air strike targeted a vehicle near a gathering of Palestinians receiving aid in the southern area of Khan Younis south of the enclave.
According to residents and a Hamas source, the vehicle targeted near a crowd receiving flour belonged to security personnel responsible for overseeing the delivery of aid shipments into Gaza.
Among the 32 killed, at least seven died in an Israeli strike on a house in central Gaza City, according to a statement from the Gaza Civil Defense and the official Palestinian news agency WAFA early on Saturday.
The Gaza Civil Defense also reported that one of its officers was killed in attacks in northern Gaza’s Jabalia, bringing the total number of civil defense workers killed since October 7, 2023, to 88.
Earlier on Saturday, WAFA reported that three employees of the World Central Kitchen, a US-based, non-governmental humanitarian agency, were killed when a civilian vehicle was targeted in Khan Younis, southern Gaza.
The World Central Kitchen has not yet commented on the incident.