Iraq is the second largest producer of OPEC. The country plans to invest US$3 billion a year to replace the liquid combustion of its power plants with natural gas. "We have also formulated a policy to stop the burning of natural gas [flare gas], which will stop burning forever by 2025," he spoke at the Middle East Green Initiative Forum in Riyadh and conducted a virtual live broadcast.

Iraq's new and old energy conversion

Ali Allawi said: "Iraq is trying to provide an annual budget of 3 billion US dollars to replace all the liquid oil used in power plants in order to cooperate with natural gas." Iraq plans to eliminate natural gas burning by 2022. The World Bank estimates that about 16 billion cubic meters of natural gas in Iraq’s oil fields were burned in 2015, causing billions of dollars in economic losses. Baghdad is also committed to reducing its methane emissions before the Glasgow Climate Change Cop26 Conference, which begins on Sunday.

Containing methane emissions has become the top priority for policymakers seeking to mitigate climate change because it is more effective than carbon dioxide, which is more often considered the biggest contributor to global warming. The vast majority of the Iraqi economy relies on oil revenue, and oil revenue accounts for 90% of government spending. By the middle of this century, the country faces the greatest risk of a global transition to net zero, which will effectively end long-term investment in hydrocarbons.

Mr. Allawi and the Executive Director of the International Energy Agency previously called on the international community to support Iraq’s transition to cleaner energy in an op-ed published in The Guardian. The country has begun to invest in solar energy and hopes to obtain up to 10 gigawatts of energy from solar energy by 2025. In June, Masdar of Abu Dhabi signed an agreement with the Iraqi National Investment Commission to develop photovoltaic projects with a minimum capacity of 2 GW. At the forum, Mr. Allawi emphasized Iraq’s role in helping strengthen the region’s food security through agricultural exports prior to the 2003 US invasion. Since the founding of the country, Iraq has had a budget, and until recently it relied on agricultural exports. This is the main contributor to regional food security. "Whether we like it or not, the possibility of relying only on oil will not last forever, because the international economy is undergoing changes, which will be a burden, especially for our oil exporting countries. "The international community will help Iraq and other profitable economies through the transfer of funds and knowledge to cope with climate change. Keywords: engineering news, engineering construction

The government of Iraqi Prime Minister Mustafa Kadhimi submitted to the parliament in 2020 a white paper on economic reform proposals to phase out subsidies to key sectors of the Iraqi economy, with a focus on power resources. Editor/Xing Wentao