The United Arab Emirates’ clean energy producer Masdar aims to sell its first ever green bonds within weeks to help fund an effort to boost renewable energy generation capacity five-fold by the end of the decade.
“We are looking to issue a green bond, hopefully this month,” Mohamed Jameel Al Ramahi, Masdar’s chief executive officer, said in an interview in Astana, Kazakhstan. The company will look to raise between $500 million and $700 million in the initial bond sale, he said.
Securities linked to clean energy are attracting more capital as companies and nations look to cut emissions to fight global warming by diversifying supplies away from hydrocarbons. The UAE was the first Persian Gulf oil state to declare a net zero target for carbon emissions by 2030, even though OPEC’s third-biggest producer still invests billions to boost oil and natural gas output.
Masdar has “a humongous target” to boost solar and wind power capacity to 100 gigawatts by 2030 from above 20 now, an effort that will require the company to buy assets and project developers as well as building its own projects, Al Ramahi said. It already has a diverse portfolio ranging from solar power in Abu Dhabi to offshore wind in the UK.
“You can’t achieve that target with just one approach to market,” he said. Masdar is actively pursuing several deals, he said, without giving specifics. The US is a “top priority” for investment, while Masdar hasn’t yet found good opportunities in China, Al Ramahi said.
The country is hosting the UN’s major climate summit later this year, amid controversy that Masdar’s Chairman Sultan Al Jaber, who also heads Abu Dhabi’s government-owned oil and gas company, is leading the meeting. Al Jaber, speaking in Bonn on Thursday, said “the phase-down of fossil fuels is inevitable,” without providing estimates by when that would happen or proposing steps to accelerate that.
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