Green Initiative Aims at Transition Towards Green Economy

DAMASCUS, (ST) -The green initiative for development in Syria aims at the transition towards a green economy as a basis for development in all sectors of the national economy according to 13 paths of development. The initiative is based on investing available potentials to achieve the strategic goals of economic, social, energy and food security through investing material and human energy, stopping waste, transforming the society into an energy of workers, qualifying new graduates in addition to ensuring the food basket for a period of 100 years and the shift to an export of energy to the global market. The green Initiative is based on three strategic pillars to reach those goals and that until 2050.

 The first pillar depends on investing renewable available energy sources to lift the burden of energy costs for industry and agriculture and residential energy sector and heading to the green architecture. The second pillar is to invest the surplus of rainfall in the Coastal area and    Al -Ghab Plain, 1450 million cubic meters of the coast and 1000 million cubic meters of Al -Ghab to develop and revitalize this area through launching a project for irrigating the inside and developing the agricultural areas in the governorates of Hama, Homs and Damascus. The third pillar focuses on the investment of human potentials of fresh graduates and young energetic.

The work team of the initiative underlines that Syria is one of the richest ten countries around the world in the diversified sources of renewable energies, including educated human capabilities that will be able to enter the labor market in all sectors in addition to renewable energy sources of wind, solar, bio-energy and water sources. The team considers that large waste in the energy sector and the support submitted to it and the big burdens the government bears make Syria an ideal state for a shift towards a green economy.

For this reason, the work has continued for the past three years in cooperation with the Climate Authority and the Green Finance Agency to crystallize a development project that puts the foundations of a green economy. Three axes have been identified in the green economy notably in the energy sector such as electricity, oil an gas including the launch of renewable energy production projects within an expansion of annual plan that produces 1000 MW and covers the annual increased demand of 400 MW and 600 MW for export.

 The  launch of investment projects in this sector to develop power plants currently existing in order to benefit from the wasted energy in these stations that reach 20 percent of the power rating which achieves an additional production in these stations exceeds 1000 MW and reduces the cost of the current production of the KT in addition to the development of extractive energies in oil fields through the adoption of plasma technology in the depths to achieve an increase in oil production capacity in the Syrian existing fields at a rate of 50 thousand barrels of oil per day.

The launch of investment projects, in the field of gas to be used in the gas cities and transport and these sectors, achieves an economic revenue equivalent to 10 times the current use of gas in power plants and the launch of a national project for the optimal wealth of phosphate instead of exporting this wealth as a raw material to Europe.

 The application of the green economy in the energy sector in Syria ensures more than 300 thousand jobs in less than five years for all disciplines of job seekers. The green team work explains that the green economy in the construction and housing sector adopts the green architecture as an alternative to the traditional architecture to ensure building  one million new houses over 10 years and this achieves setting up urban green complexes in cities and towns and produced their need of energy with a surplus which eases the burden of the household consumption of energy and launch of development projects in the existing cities to green cities, towns and districts with a view to eliminating visual and urban distortion.   The   green economy, in this sector, provides over 500 thousand jobs in all engineering and vocational sectors and regulates the labor market, which is currently run at random in these sectors.

In the sector of solid waste, the adoption of green management converts the household waste to productive sector, manages processes of transportation, deportation and safe disposal of all types of waste from the source to the stations with the participation of families and taking advantage of the components of the waste in the production of electrical energy and recycling to secure more than 100 thousand jobs.

The green economy, in the agricultural sector and livestock production, is carried out through the adoption of renewable energy in agriculture and the work on the food security project including rainwater harvesting in the coast and moving it to the inside to be invested in the desert region, stretching between Homs and Damascus to produce the Syrian food basket. Through the development of the project with the course of the Orontes River including Al –Ghab Plain, the Green Economy will ensure the food basket and agro-processing, especially with the presence of the industrial area in Hesya to be turned into a great agricultural and animal manufacturing zone in addition to the development of livestock in the project area through a national project for Al -Awass sheep and Shami goats and raising all kinds of animal wealth, whereas green economy will provide, in this sector, more than 500 thousand jobs over 10 years.

In the industrial sector, the destination will be towards industrialization based on local primary sources as a part of a plan to manufacture the available raw material in Syria for the production of an added value generated by the manufacturing process to adopt renewable energy sources and green clean technology. The strategic objective is to secure the needs of the market of all industrial materials that make the list of imports to the list zero, then the work to export the locals based on the local materials and the green economy will ensure, in this sector, more than 300 thousand jobs in all industrial disciplines.                                                                              

Sh. Kh.