MUSCAT: A national Net Zero Centre, currently being established pursuant to the Royal Directives of His Majesty Sultan Haitham bin Tarik, will be tasked with orchestrating the Sultanate of Oman’s pathway to net zero by 2050.

According to a key official, the Net Zero Centre will be formally unveiled shortly once an “alignment” on its mandate, currently ongoing with various ministries and government stakeholder institutions, is completed.

Speaking at the Korea-Oman Green Industry Business Roundtable, which was held in Muscat recently, Mohsin al Jabri of the Oman Net Zero Centre said the primary remit of the new institution is to develop and execute the country’s new zero strategy.

Importantly, the Oman Net Zero Centre will have a key role in advising the policymaker on Net Zero and sustainability issues. It will also coordinate and monitor decarbonisation and energy transition projects. Furthermore, in addition to capacity building and awareness development, the Center will also enable business by supporting sustainable finance and innovation advancement.

“One of the things that will be done by Oman Net Zero Center to ensure that we will have a pool of projects, which will take us first to 2030 with a 21 per cent (CO2) reduction, and then after that, we’re going gradually to achieve our Net Zero target by 2050,” he noted.

Prioritised for implementation from this pool of projects will be those focused on driving energy efficiency, said Al Jabri. “We will start by executing this kind of projects because we believe that in both the public and private sectors, there are opportunities to reduce emission by executing energy efficiency projects. When setting our priorities, we will also define what would be potential projects to be implemented with potential financing, which will come during the execution (phase).”

Part of its remit, the official further added, is to develop an ecosystem to attract green and sustainable finance to help fund projects critical to achieving Oman’s Net Zero strategy in a cost-competitive manner, he added.

Other key roles of the Centre are as follows: To propose and regularly update Net Zero targets for various sectors, as well as pathways and corresponding roadmaps; Suggest policies norms and standards for Net Zero across industry and government sectors, Executive the national strategy for Energy Efficiency across all sectors; Set up and manage the system of carbon credit certification; and Manage GHG emission compliance.

Earlier, in opening remarks, Korean Ambassador Kim Kiejoo stated: “This roundtable has three important contributions to our joint work and collective commitment. First, it is a platform where the Korean and Omani stakeholders are engaged in pursuing our clearly focused goal of advancing green transition, which is a global imperative. Indeed, our two countries are committed to achieving net zero by 2050. This collective goal requires ambitious and innovative approaches as well as collaboration. As such, our two countries are making a lot of efforts to achieve the global goal.”

The daylong roundtable attracted a number of entities operating within the green energy and sustainability ecosystem in Oman and Korea. Supporting the event from the Korean side were the Ministry of Environment, Korea Environmental Industry & Technology Institute (KEITI), and Korea Trade Investment Promotion Agency (KOTRA).

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