Minister of Industry and Advanced Technology, President of the Conference of the Parties (COP28), Dr. Sultan Ahmad Al Jaber, confirmed that the leadership of COP28 is keen to strengthen cooperation, in line with the vision of the leadership in the UAE. All parties, and including everyone in the work of the Conference, ensure the completion of concrete and effective work, achieving high ambitions for the future that simultaneously support economic growth and climate action.
In his opening speech before the 10th annual Arctic Circle Assembly in the Icelandic capital of Reykjavik, Al Jaber conveyed the greetings of the UAE leadership to heads of state and heads of business and environment sectors.
Sultan Al Jaber highlighted the negative effects of climate change on threatened ecosystems in the Arctic and called on the Assembly countries to support the “COP28” action plan to protect the environment and secure the possibility of achieving the goals of the Paris Agreement.
Al Jaber praised the Arctic Circle’s important role in leading the dialogue on the impact of climate change on threatened ecosystems in the Arctic over the past 10 years, and warned the world that temperatures in the Arctic are increasing at a rate of four. times faster than the rest of the planet.
Al-Jaber pointed to the need to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 22 gigatons to safeguard the chance of avoiding a global temperature rise of more than 1.5 degrees Celsius over the next seven years. The efforts of the whole world.
Al-Jaber emphasized that the COP28 President’s Action Plan will turn the goals of the Paris Agreement into a road map, focusing on the practical aspects of achieving concrete and effective progress that the world can follow and achieve the desired goals by implementing its four pillars. , namely: accelerating an orderly, responsible, fair and logical transition in the energy sector, and developing… climate finance mechanisms, protecting people and nature, improving lives and livelihoods and fully including all in international climate action.
On accelerating the transition in the energy sector, Al Jaber explained the importance of this transition, orderly, responsible, fair and logical, that leaves no one behind, and is in line with the COP28 goal of increasing renewable generation capacity. Triple energy sources worldwide by 2030.
He pointed to the COP28 leadership’s progress in achieving international consensus in the field, with around 85% of the world’s economies supporting tripling the production capacity of renewable energy and doubling the efficiency of energy use by 2030. He called on all international and national oil companies to reduce methane emissions and intensify efforts to achieve climate neutrality by 2050. Clean energy, and reduce emissions from the energy sources they currently use.
Al-Jaber renewed his call to expand the scope of climate finance, including for developed countries to meet their pledge of $100 billion in climate finance to developing countries, replenish the resources of the Green Climate Fund, double adaptation finance and enable loss and damage. Remedial finance, and emphasized the importance of improving the work of multilateral development banks to provide more climate finance in an accessible and cost-effective manner, together with developing market mechanisms aimed at encouraging the private sector to provide more financing.
He explained that all climate action efforts must aim to protect people and lives and improve livelihoods. Therefore, the COP28 leadership was keen to ensure that issues of health, food and nature were at the top of the conference’s agenda.
He called on countries to sign both the “COP28 Declaration on Sustainable Agriculture and Climate-Resilient Food Systems” and the “COP28 Declaration on Health and Climate”.
