Good morning, folks. The news cycle is picking up this morning with news on fresh UAE investment in Indian renewables and the latest on Turkey’s regulatory amendments to give the country a renewables push.

THE BIG CLIMATE STORY OUTSIDE THE REGION- There’s no single story dominating the headlines, but Spain's Repsol hitting the brakes on hydrogen projects in Spain is grabbing some ink. The company has paused its planned green hydrogen projects — including a EUR 200 mn 100 MW initiative in Cartagena and others in Tarragona and the Basque country — citing an unfavorable regulatory environment. Repsol's decision comes amid uncertainties surrounding potential changes to Spain's windfall tax on energy companies, which could become permanent. The story got ink in Reuters and Bloomberg.

ON A RELATED NOTE- Germany has approved plans for a EUR 19 bn hydrogen network as the country pushes ahead in its shift from fossil fuels to achieve climate neutrality by 2045. The approved proposals include a 9k km hydrogen grid connecting industrial hubs with about 60% of the network using converted existing gas pipelines. The first pipes will be operational in 2025 and the rest of the network is expected to be fully operational by 2032. The story grabbed ink in Bloomberg.

COP WATCH-

COP16 is in session, here’s what to look out for: The Conference of the Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity (COP16) kicked off in Colombia on Monday, and we’re waiting to hear news on the major biodiversity protection and restoration measures being negotiated and hammered out.

Here’s the 411 guide on all the events going down: Head here for the general schedule and updates or here for a more detailed breakdown of all the panels, workshops, discussions, debates, and keynote speeches.

What’s the focal point? Countries’ national biodiversity plans (NBSAPs) — which outline how they plan to align with the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework — are set to be a main issue, mainly because 80% of countries failed to submit theirs. Finances and the flow of species’ genetic information also top the agenda.

REMEMBER- NBSAPs are in bad shape: As of 17 October, only 25 countries had submitted their plans, of which only five were megadiverse countries that harbor about 70% of global biodiversity. The NBSAPs will be used to assess global progress made on nature conservation since the framework’s 2022 inception and determine the necessary action plans moving forward.

Financing discussions may be tense: The 2022 framework called for a USD 700 bn pledge for global protection and restoration efforts and asked wealthy countries to contribute an annual USD 20 bn for developing countries’ efforts by 2025 — to be raised to USD 30 bn by 2030. As of 2022, only USD 15.4 bn has been mobilized, Bloomberg reports. No data is available for 2023 and 2024.

But these projects ‘tangentially’ support biodiversity: Advocacy group Campaign for Nature says most of the funding went to projects “tangentially linked to protecting biodiversity,” raising similar concerns of greenwashing that plagued green bonds amid the absence of standardization.

That’s not all: The exchange of genetic information taken from plants, animals, and microbes — a practice necessary for research, medicinal, and other industrial uses — is up for tough discussions. Traditionally, scientists would pay the country of origin and export genetic samples, but as technology makes exchanges easier and allows exporters to take a permanent “digital fingerprint” of the samples, some countries want changes to the current system that some are calling “biopiracy.” The summit hopes to set up a global multilateral system for purchasing access to the data, but negotiators still need to hammer out the details of when payments are required, by whom, and where the money should go,” reports Reuters. One proposal wants to get companies to contribute to a global fund that would be used to fund nature protection projects.

The summit is getting a lot of ink: Reuters | Bloomberg | The Guardian | Wall Street Journal

WATCH THIS SPACE-

#1- Amea’s 500 MW solar farm is reportedly live: Emirati renewables company Amea Power has reportedly brought its 500 MW solar plant in Abydos online after successfully concluding operational and national grid connection tests, Al Mal reports, citing unnamed sources close to the project. The plant is contracted via a build-own-operate (BOO) framework. Built at Aswan’s Kom Ombo desert over a 10k sq meters area — the plant is part of Egypt’s broader push to add 4.5 GW of renewable energy by summer 2025 to reduce the need for power load reductions, reports Al Mal.

REMEMBER- Amea is investing USD 800 mn to develop and expand solar and battery energy storage projects in Upper Egypt — adding a 300 MWh storage system to the Abydos solar plant and setting up a 1 GW solar facility with a 600 MWh battery storage system in Benban. The company is also working on a 500 MW wind farm in Ras Ghareb dubbed Amunet, which is scheduled to come online in 3Q 2025.

#2- PIF-backed Lucid’s follow-on public offering raised USD 1.75 bn, coming in above the USD 1.67 bn figure initially expected, Lucid CEO Peter Rawlinson told Reuters. The figure includes proceeds from PIF’s purchase of an added 374.7 mn shares in the luxury EV maker in a private placement.

Use of proceeds: The transaction gives Lucid cashflow runway “well into 2026,” Rawlinson said. The raised funds will support product development, a new plant in Saudi, and expansion works at the firm’s Arizona facility.

Where’s the money going? The company is at a “capital-intensive” stage as the company prepares the launch of new models, such as its Gravity SUV and works to increase its manufacturing capacities by expanding its Arizona plant and building a new factory in Saudi, said Rawlinson. The money will also be directed to build a global sales network.

There were some complications along the way: The sale was misinterpreted by investors and led to one of the stock’s worst daily performances (-18%) in almost three years, Rawlinson told CNBC. Ayar’s massive placement coming alongside the public offering — designed so the PIF-backed investor maintains its 58% majority in Lucid, had reportedly led some investors to worry about the dilution of share value, CNBC reports. Several analysts also took issue with the timing of the offering being too early for the company that had USD 5.16 bn of liquidity by the end of 3Q, but Rawlinson defended the timing saying that the company needed to alleviate worries over needing to issue a “going concern” disclosure.

#3- EU approves Masdar solar JV: The European Commission gave the green light to a solar joint venture between UAE’s Masdar, France’s EDF Renewables, and Saudi Arabia’s Nesma, according to a statement. The consortium will handle the power generation, transmission, distribution, and sales of the project which is reportedly the 1.1 GW Al Henakiyah Solar PV project that was awarded to a consortium comprising the three companies in November.

This has been in the works: The companies reportedly plan to break ground on the PV plant – which is being built under a build-own-operate agreement – this year and the project is expected to come online in 2026. Once operational, Al Henakiyah is expected to generate enough clean energy to power some 190k households annually.

Masdar + EDF has other projects in the works: Masdar and EDF, along with Koweco, reached a financial close on the 1.5 GW Al Ajban solar PV IPP project in Abu Dhabi last month. The two companies also signed an agreement with Kyrgyzstan’s Ministry of Energy to establish 3.6 GW of hydropower and renewable energy projects last year. They also entered into a 25-year concession agreement with Saudi’s Red Sea Global last year on a multi-utility infrastructure facility to service its ultra-luxury resort destination Amaala on the country’s northwestern coast.

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CIRCLE YOUR CALENDAR-

Saudi Arabia will host the Future Investment Initiative Conference from Tuesday, 29 October to Thursday, 31 October, in Riyadh. The conference will gather entrepreneurs, political leaders, and decision-makers to explore investment options in AI, sustainability, energy, and more.

Egypt will host the World Urban Forum from Monday, 4 November to Friday, 8 November, in Cairo. The forum, established by the UN and one of its largest non-legislative events, will center around the effect of rapid urbanization on communities, economies, climate change, and policies and will bring together government representatives, academics, business people, urban planners, and more.

South Africa will host the Critical Mineral Africa Summit from Wednesday, 6 November to Thursday, 7 November, in Cape Town. The summit aims to attract critical minerals investment to the continent and will be held alongside African Energy Week. The summit will be held in partnership with the Southern African-German Chamber of Commerce Partners representing Germany’s increasing investments in southern Africa.

Azerbaijan will host the United Nations Climate Change Conference or Conference of theParties (COP29) from Monday, 11 November to Friday, 22 November, in Baku. The annual conference brings together governments, world leaders, and other stakeholders to advance the Paris Agreement and negotiate ways to fight climate change. The United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change’s objective is to “stabilize greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere at a level that would prevent dangerous anthropogenic interference with the climate system”.

Check out our full calendar on the web for a comprehensive listing of upcoming news events, national holidays and news triggers.