Algeria and World Environment Fund sign renewable energy partnership agreement
The Algerian Ministry of land development, environment and tourism and the World Environment Fund have inked a major partnership accord on renewable energy essentially geared for the promotion of clean technologies in the future model city of Boughezoul to be built south-west of Algiers by 2020.
- The relevant agreement was signed by the minister of land development, environment and tourism Chérif Rahmani and the Fund’s top manager Monique Barabou during an official ceremony held Tuesday in Algiers.
- This came in the wake of the signing earlier this year by Algeria and Germany of a memorandum of understanding on renewable energy and environmental protection.
- Under the accord, the two countries will also implement a joint waste treatment project in the new city of Boughezoul.
- “Algerian green city Boughezoul will tap Masdar for advice“
- The developers of a new low-carbon city in Algeria will be looking to Abu Dhabi’s Masdar project for inspiration. The city of Boughezoul will be built from scratch about 200 kilometres south of the Algerian capital, Algiers, at a fraction of Abu Dhabi’s US$22 billion (Dh81 billion) budget. Its goal is also less ambitious than Masdar, which aims to be completely carbon-neutral. But the team behind it still had a lot to learn from Masdar, said Bernard Jamet, the head of the technology transfer unit at the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP).
- UNEP is working with the Algerian government to implement the project, which will eventually house 400,000 people. Phase one, expected for completion in four years, would house 80,000 people. The Algerian government is contributing $22 million for the project, in addition to $8.2 million from the Global Environment Facility, an independent organisation that has already allocated $9.2bn in funding for clean technologies in developing countries.
- While detailed plans for the development are still being worked out, the city will rely on solar energy and solar hot water generation, as well as zero-carbon architecture. All street lights will feature light-emitting diodes (LEDs), the most efficient lighting technology on the market.
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Dr Robert Dixon, the leader of Global Environment Facility’s climate and chemicals team, said the project aimed to accelerate the adoption of clean technologies in Algeria and the rest of the region. But if greenhouse gas emissions were to be reduced rapidly, such projects had to be scaled up considerably, he said.