Day: March 18, 2023

BRUSSELS, The European Commission proposed the Net-Zero Industry Act to scale up manufacturing of clean technologies in the EU and make sure the Union is well-equipped for the clean-energy transition. This initiative was announced by President von der Leyen as a part of the Green Deal Industrial Plan.

The Act will strengthen the resilience and competitiveness of net-zero technologies manufacturing in the EU, and make our energy system more secure and sustainable. It will create better conditions to set up net-zero projects in Europe and attract investments, with the aim that the Union’s overall strategic net-zero technologies manufacturing capacity approaches or reaches at least 40% of the Union’s deployment needs by 2030. This will accelerate the progress towards the EU’s 2030 climate and energy targets and the transition to climate neutrality, while boosting the competitiveness of EU industry, creating quality jobs, and supporting the EU’s efforts to become energy independent.

President of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, said: “We need a regulatory environment that allows us to scale up the clean energy transition quickly. The Net-Zero Industry Act will do just that. It will create the best conditions for those sectors that are crucial for us to reach net-zero by 2050: technologies like wind turbines, heat pumps, solar panels, renewable hydrogen as well as CO2 storage. Demand is growing in Europe and globally, and we are acting now to make sure we can meet more of this demand with European supply.”

Together with the proposal for a European Critical Raw Materials Act and the reform of the electricity market design, the Net-Zero Industry Act sets out a clear European framework to reduce the EU’s reliance on highly concentrated imports. By drawing on the lessons learnt from the Covid-19 pandemic and the energy crisis sparked by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, it will help increase the resilience of Europe’s clean energy supply chains.

The proposed legislation addresses technologies that will make a significant contribution to decarbonisation. These include: solar photovoltaic and solar thermal, onshore wind and offshore renewable energy, batteries and storage, heat pumps and geothermal energy, electrolysers and fuel cells, biogas/biomethane, carbon capture, utilisation and storage, and grid technologies, sustainable alternative fuels technologies, advanced technologies to produce energy from nuclear processes with minimal waste from the fuel cycle, small modular reactors, and related best-in-class fuels. The Strategic Net Zero technologies identified in the Annex to the Regulation will receive particular support and are subject to the 40% domestic production benchmark.

Source: Emirates News Agency

ABU DHABI, Sheikh Nahyan bin Mubarak Al Nahyan, Minister of Tolerance and Coexistence, last night attended a reception hosted by the Ambassador of Ireland to the UAE, Alison Milton, on the occasion of her country’s National Day, at her residence in Abu Dhabi.

Irish Minister for Education Norma Foley and a number of Emirati officials,

members of the Arab and foreign diplomatic corps, and a group of resident Irish businessmen and citizens also attended the event.

Tariq Al Fahaam

Source: Emirates News Agency

ANKARA, The Turkish Communications Directorate released a new book, Disaster of the Century: February 6, 2023 Kahramanmaras Earthquakes, that revealed the measures taken by Turkiye to rehabilitate the victims of last month’s disaster.

The book, published on Friday in Turkish, English and Arabic, consists of six parts: About the Earthquakes that Occurred on February 6, 2023 In Kahramanmaras, Understanding the Disaster of the Century, Search and Rescue Activities After the Earthquake, Disaster Communication and Combating Disinformation, Post-earthquake Solidarity, and Post-earthquake Reconstruction and Recovery Efforts.

The book praised the efforts of international search and rescue teams that came to Turkiye after responding to the country’s international call for help.

It also includes detailed scientific data on the earthquake as well as the destruction caused by the disaster and its effects on natural, historical and cultural assets throughout the region.

In the book, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said: “From the first moment of the earthquake, we have mobilised all our resources as the state and as the nation. We have directed all the search and rescue, aid and support capacities of our ministries, institutions and organisations to the earthquake area.”

“We quickly dispatched professional search and rescue teams responding to our international call for help with nearly 11,500 personnel from 90 countries, including NATO and the European Union, to the field. Thus, with a total of 35,000 people, we assembled an unprecedented search and rescue force in the world,” he added.

Erdogan stressed the government has “the resolve and power to remedy all the destruction and damage. At the moment, we are focused on healing the wounds in the earthquake area and quickly remedying all the losses of the country.”

“With the lessons we have learned and the motivation given by our confidence in our future, we can turn this great disaster we have experienced as a nation into an occasion for a bigger breakthrough,” he added.

More than 48,400 people were killed in Turkiye by magnitude 7.7 and 7.6 quakes that hit on Feb. 6, according to officials.

Over 13.5 million people have been affected in Turkiye by the massive quakes which struck the provinces of Kahramanmaras, Hatay, Gaziantep, Adiyaman, Malatya, Adana, Diyarbakir, Kilis, Osmaniye, Sanliurfa, and Elazig.

Source: Emirates News Agency