Innovating Our Way Out of the Climate Crisis – the Middle East and Africa Has a Key Role to Play

Innovating Our Way Out of the Climate Crisis – the Middle East and Africa Has a Key Role to Play

It’s eye-opening to consider that more than half (http://bit.ly/3tJNDfO) of the world’s best solar resources are in the Middle East and Africa (MEA). When you combine this vast untapped potential with a rapidly evolving renewable energy landscape, formidable people power from a growing youth population and thriving entrepreneurial scene, it’s clear that MEA has an increasingly important role to play in innovating towards a way out of the climate crisis.

There is a rousing incentive to act with urgency. Though MEA may have the lowest contribution to greenhouse gas emissions in the world, it’s the most vulnerable region to the effects of climate change, especially Africa. Home to many of the planet’s key suppliers of fossil fuels, the region is also pivotal in enabling the shift towards new sources of energy. Already, there is a huge focus from governments to invest in sustainability, and investment in clean energy from the UAE alone totals $40 billion (http://bit.ly/3Fgb7Q4).

But much work is still be done at a far greater scale and that work is dependent on three things: people, money and digital technology and data.

It’s the cost-efficient and highly scalable nature of the cloud, for example, that enables energy startup, M-KOPA Solar, to manage