The Egyptian President Abdel Fattah El Sisi on Tuesday announced the launching of an initiative on the green hydrogen global forum in partnership with Belgium and a number of international partners with the aim of establishing a permanent platform for dialogue among producing and consuming countries of hydrogen as well as the private sector and international organisations.
Addressing a roundtable titled ” “Investing in the Future of Energy: Green Hydrogen” held on the fringe of the UN Climate Summit, Sisi said Egypt and Belgium has been working on such initiative over the past months in coordination with a number of partners.
He said “I am pleased today, in partnership with Prime Minister Alexander De Croo, to launch such initiative”.
Sisi extended thanks to participants in the session especially German Chancellor Olaf Scholz for sharing the presidency of the session to deliberate on the green hydrogen transition in developing countries.
The Egyptian president asserted that the term “Green Hydrogen” has been familiar over the past few years in view of the importance of decreasing dependency on traditional energy resources which has become a necessity amid the current fuel crisis. Securing more safe supplies of energy is a necessity to mitigate the impact of global climate change or drawback on our national objectives in this regard.
Sisi also said that green hydrogen is one of the key solutions on the way of transition to green economy over the coming years, noting that this option is a real chance for achieving economic development in line with the international efforts to mitigate climate change and Paris Agreement on Climate.
Many countries have already started taking serious steps in this regard whether through formulating national strategies for the production of hydrogen or through promising timetables to gradually turn to the green hydrogen as a key source for energy at the local or international levels, Sisi explained.
Egypt was among the top countries that realised the available opportunities in such field based on its huge potentials in the production of clean energy and with the ambition of turning to a global hub for the production of green hydrogen at the medium and long-range, Sisi added.
Sisi made it clear that today’s session comes within the framework of the practical steps and a live model of the principle of “implementation” which gathered us today with Norwegian Prime Minister to launch the first phase of green hydrogen production plant in El Ain El Sokhna with a capacity of 100 megwatts.
Sisi spoke about some concerns of the developing countries regarding the issue of energy. He said according to the International Energy Agency(IEA) statistics the share of developing countries from the proposed green hydrogen projects was only two projects out of 680 across the world. It is quite clear that the developing countries are still the less benefiting from the available investment opportunities in green hydrogen in view of its week technological potentials, Sisi stated.
“Even in the cases where developing countries have been able to make steady steps in this field such as Egypt, there remains a challenge of supporting local producers to be able to provide low-cost production and compete in the international market.” Sisi explained.
This challenge along with other technical standards and conditions relevant to hydrogen trade and production are also key issues that should be resolved, Sisi added.
All debates raised at the roundtable should take come up with clear implementation steps that we all agree on to reach to successful mechanisms and solutions for the energy transition, Sisi added.
Concluding his word, Sisi voiced hope that such discussions could bring about fruitful and constructive outcomes amid presence of major producers and consumers of green hydrogen as well as heads of organisations and operating companies in the sector.