The United Arab Emirates (UAE), India and France announced a trilateral initiative to launch clean energy projects, with a particular focus on solar and nuclear sources.
In a phone call on Saturday, the three countries' top diplomats agreed to work together on cooperative projects in the fields of energy, climate change and biodiversity, they announced in a joint statement.
They will expand their cooperation through initiatives such as the UAE-led Mangrove Alliance for Climate and the Indo-Pacific Parks Partnership led by India and France. It was agreed that the three countries should focus on key issues such as single-use plastic pollution, desertification and food security in the context of the International Year of Millets, the statement said.
Since Russia launched its invasion of Ukraine a year ago, European countries began looking for alternative energy sources to replace Russian oil and gas, including reaching out to oil-rich Arab Gulf countries. Another factor in the increasing integration of the Gulf states into international bodies is the normalization with Israel achieved by the UAE, Bahrain and Morocco with the US-brokered Abraham accords in 2020.