By MAUREEN OKON

The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia will plant 50 billion trees in its ‘Two Green Initiative’ for the Middle East to combat environmental hazard.

The Saudi Arabia Ambassador to Nigeria, Faisal Alghamdi, at a news conference in Abuja on Thursday said that the kingdom was interested in combating climate change and environmental challenges in the region.

Alghamdi said: “the kingdom announces two green initiatives of planting 50 billion trees in the Middle East.

“This is due to low level of rainfall which has affected the rise in temperature, higher dust waves and desertification, which in turn constitute an economic threat to the region.

“The Green Saudi Initiative aims at improving the quality of life and protecting succeeding generations through increase in the level of vegetation, reduction of carbon emissions, combating pollution and land degradation, and preservation of marine life.

“Under this initiative, ten billion trees will be planted within the kingdom, thereby representing four per cent of the global contributions to reduce carbon emissions.

“Also it aims at raising the electricity generation within the kingdom to 50 per cent by the year 2030, using renewable energy programme.’’

According to him, the second initiative is aimed at the Middle East Green initiative, that will see the planting of 40 billion trees in the region.

The ambassador said that 10 billion trees would be planted in the kingdom while 40 in countries of the Middle East.

He said that the initiative would see the planting of the trees in the Middle East region in partnership with the countries of the Gulf region and other Middle East countries.

“The initiative is in collaboration with other allies and organisations that look forward to working with the kingdom to achieve this goal.

“It is a regional blueprint launched by the kingdom to contribute immensely to the realisation of the global objectives of combating climate change, which represents five per cent of the global target of planting one trillion trees.

“This will also reduce the global carbon rate by 2.5 per cent. This joint effort will also contribute to reducing carbon emissions by more than 10 per cent of the global contributions and also enhance the region’s hydrocarbon technology efficiency,” he said. (NAN)

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