UAE backs World Energy Day campaign

A push to recognise October 22 as World Energy Day has been positively received by the UAE’s top leaders. Several UAE authorities jointly announced on Monday that a proposal by Professor Harold Hyun-Suk Oh, president and founder of the World Energy Forum, which is to be hosted on October 22 this year in Dubai, has been endorsed in full by His Highness Shaikh Mohammad Bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Vice-President and Prime Minister of the UAE and Ruler of Dubai. “This was discussed in a meeting with His Highness last Thursday. The Supreme Council of Energy has adopted this initiative and included it in the forum’s agenda. World Energy Day will be launched in Dubai, and will also be adopted by the United Nations to be celebrated annually, in the same manner as World Environment Day,” officials announced in a joint statement issued on Sunday. The push to officially recognise a World Energy Day annually will help launch “a global movement towards providing safer cleaner energy to all, and sustainability for mankind.” Officials with Dubai Government and Dubai Electricity and Water Authority (Dewa) said that a meeting was held on Monday between Mohammad Al Tayer, vice-chairman of the Supreme Council of Energy, Professor Hyun-Suk Oh, and senior executives of the energy forum. Officials said the central thrust of the meeting was to discuss “directives of His Highness” including global sustainability issues and the role of the UAE in such initiatives. Under this year’s theme, Forum for World Leaders, delegates attending the October forum in Dubai will include presidents, prime ministers, and energy and environment ministers from all over the world, in addition to leaders of the world’s largest corporations from both the private and public sectors, industry experts and policy and decision makers from all over the world.