ISLAMABAD, Jul 6 (APP): President-designate of COP-28 and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) Minister for Industry & Advanced Technologies, Dr. Sultan Al Jaber on Thursday said the UAE was striving to ensure that the 28th Conference of the Parties to the UNFCCC meeting, to be hosted by Dubai this year was ensured as an all-inclusive platform for unified global action.
The UAE Minister made these remarks during a talk held here at the Foreign Service Academy (FSA) flanked by Minister for Climate Change and Environmental Coordination, Pakistan Senator Sherry Rehman and Director General, FSA Ambassador Mazhar Javed.
Sultan Al Jaber thanked the government of Pakistan and FSA and the Minister for Climate Change for facilitating his visit. He expressed that he had assumed the task of COP-28’s presidency with humility and a deep sense of responsibility.
“Over the last few months, I have had the opportunity to engage with all stakeholders from all over the world including businesses, governments, students, and scientists etc.”
He added that during all the engagements he converged the discussion for all inclusive platform. “The voices were most resonating of the people at the forefront of the climate change. The sad reality is that climate change is having profound impact on the lives of those people. Last year floods in Pakistan, almost affected 33 million people, caused over 1700 deaths, and billions of dollars losses in infrastructure,” the UAE Minister said.
He mentioned that it was imperative to allow the affected communities’ voices to be heard and respond to their queries who were facing climate change and come up with result-oriented outcomes. The COP process has evolved over the years and become politically charged and a comprehensive forum, he said, adding, “In about 148 days from today UAE will host COP-28 in Dubai. This is going to be the first ever official assessment of how world acted upon Paris Agreement.”
He noted that the UAE was genuinely interested to reduce 43% of the GHG emissions to limit global temperature to 1.5C as business as usual could no longer work. “We need to ensure course correction to meet ultimate goals of Paris Agreement. We must build energy system of the future and decarbonise energy mix. World must not work in a fragmented but rather in a holistic manner,” he added.
Al Jaber said the focus of attention was to meet the pledges by the countries at the previous COP forums and the global climate fund by the developed countries to deliver $100 billion annually to the global south.
“We must work on programmes and action agendas that work on climate adaptation. We cannot leave anyone behind.
What is needed is to start thinking differently in a new manner and culture. The divide and polarisation lead to this level and we need to unify the world for this agenda and should ensure inclusivity to ensure this agenda,” he said.
The President-designate of COP-28 said the public and private sectors, diplomatic community, academia and all had to join hands.
In his welcome remarks, the DG FSA expressed his gratitude to the UAE Minister for visiting Pakistan and sharing his insights on the subject matter.
Minister for Climate Change, Senator Sherry Rehman in her opening remarks thanked the UAE Minister for accepting Pakistan’s invitation to visit the country. She said for Pakistan climate change was a new and accelerating reality as it had become the ground zero for many ways starting from heatwaves to glacial melts and monster monsoon that ravaged its population.
She said Pakistan stood committed to looking forward a tranformative change as global pledges would now had to become actions and resources as pipelines to address climate crisis. The Minister commended that Dr. Al Jaber was clear in his vision for tranfomative change at the COP platform.
She mentioned that Pakistan was also working on renewable energy transition to address climate change whereas capital and capacity were important for the clean energy transition.
Responding to media queries, the UAE Minister said the Emirates government would make all out efforts to facilitate committee members of the loss and damage transition body to present necessary recommendations. “We will encourage countries facing climate change to participate at the forum and present their case. We have adopted the narrative to merge the culture around inclusivity, justice and equality. We don’t want to contribute in the divide but rather provide a platform that is centered around inclusiveness.”
He ended that a sophisticated pool of young people would be given representation at the COP-28 to have effective participation and it would be a paradigm shift for youth at COP-28.
