The Saudi government has designated March 27 of each year as an official day for the Saudi Green Initiative.
The cabinet session was chaired by Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques King Salman bin Abdulaziz in Jeddah on Tuesday.
Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman announced on March 27, 2021 the Saudi Green Initiative and the Middle East Green Initiative.
The initiatives aim to chart a path for Saudi Arabia and the region in protecting the planet, by clearly defining an ambitious road map that rallies the region and significantly contributes to achieving global targets in confronting climate change, said the Crown Prince.
He remarked that as a leading global oil producer, “the Kingdom fully recognizes its share of responsibility in advancing the fight against the climate crisis. Just as the Kingdom underpinned energy markets during the oil and gas era, it is going to become a global leader in forging a greener world.”
The Saudi Green Initiative includes ambitious plans, most notably the planting of 10 billion trees in the Kingdom in the upcoming decades, or the equivalent to rehabilitating roughly 40 million hectares of degraded lands, translating to a twelvefold increase from current tree cover.
This represents the Kingdom's contribution of more than 4% in achieving the goals of the global initiative to limit the degradation of lands and fungal habitats, and 1% of the global target to plant 1 trillion trees.
The initiative will also work to reduce carbon emissions by more than 4% of global contributions, through an ambitious renewable energy program that will generate 50% of the Kingdom’s energy from renewables by 2030.
