In the previous two parts of Nfinity8’s  COP28 series, we have highlighted the global institutions and foundational agreements upon which the core of global climate action is based on. As well as showcasing the importance of climate knowledge starting from the individual, local and regional levels to the global level. 

Now, as the UAE moves closer to embracing the momentous COP28 by the end of November 2023, few things are more important than to know where we stand today, the undeniable efforts exerted by the UAE leading into the global climate event, and eventually trying to envision the road to the future of our planet through the UAE lens. Let’s continue our climate knowledge journey together. 

The UAE as a Regional Collaboration Centre (RCCs) 

The workforce that the secretariat of the UNFCCC relies on are not distant individuals who dedicate their careers and lives to climate action separately. They actually conglomerate their efforts into organized groups starting from the local level, and the joint efforts of such groups helps find their regional and continental momentum when they collaborate together, under the supervision of the UNFCCC at the top. 

This is why it is essential to understand the concept of RCCs (AKA: Regional Collaboration Centres), as the UAE represents one of these crucial collaboration centres across the MENA and South Asia regions. 

RCCs were instituted to encourage more well-off countries to financially support the underdeveloped and least-developed countries of the world, through investments in the sustainability projects listed under their NDCs, to reward their efforts in reducing greenhouse gas emissions, and to expand the benefits of what is termed Clean Development Mechanism (CDM). Which is an UN-run carbon offset programme that allows and encourages countries to fund GHG emissions’ reduction initiatives in other countries, to meet emissions targets on the global level. 

On the 20^th of October 2019, the regional collaboration centre for the entire MENA and South Asia regions has been established in the great emirate of Dubai, to institutionalize the collaboration between the UNFCCC and the World Green Economy Organization (WGEO), and to advance the Paris Agreement objectives in these regions and beyond. 

Patricia Espinosa, the then-Executive secretary of the UNFCC commented on this milestone at the time, saying: “I am delighted to celebrate the opening of RCC Dubai. Regional collaboration is a key to informing, activating and catalysing action on climate change”. Adding that: “This collaboration will be instrumental in enhancing the scale of climate action in the region in an efficient, impactful and collaborative manner.” 

This step confirmed the pivotal role that the UAE plays in filling the knowledge gaps in climate change on the fronts of adaptation, strategizing, access to climate finance, and leveraging the energy of women and youth to introduce fresh methods and innovative initiatives to address climate change. 

The UAE continues to play a vital role on the regional and international levels through its CDM approach, which helps channel resources to the countries that need it the most, facilitating the implementation of their NDCs and NAPs, so they can meet the objectives of the 2030 Sustainable Development Goals Agenda. 

COP27 > 28: Where We Stand Today? 

It is not an exaggeration to say that the world is going through a critical decade when it comes to conquering climate change. And to know where we are heading, we must always know where we stand. This is why it’s enlightening to highlight the five main takeaways from COP27, which was held in November 2022 in Sharm Al Sheikh, Egypt. 

The UAE government’s course of action attests that we have closely looked into these takeaways to contribute to overcoming the challenges and achieving the required goals. On the fronts of holding businesses and institutions to account, transparency of reporting, accountability of companies in the public, private and services sectors, and adopting a zero-tolerance approach for greenwashing. Most importantly, registering climate pledges through both the CSR UAE Fund, that we have discussed in a previous article, and on the UN’s Global Climate Action Portal. 

On another front, the UAE is committed to the global effort of establishing a dedicated fund for loss and damage for vulnerable countries that have suffered from climate change-induced disasters. Through its CDM commitment as an RCC, the UAE is proving its significance in mobilizing financial support for developing countries to bolster their NDCs regarding mitigation, adaptation and acquiring the most advanced climate technologies. 

Regarding the nature-based climate solutions, the Mangrove Breakthrough – an integral part of COP27’s Adaptation Agenda- has been officially adopted by the UAE government. This was clearly conveyed by HE Mariam Almheiri, the UAE’s Minister of Climate Change and Environment, who stated:  

 “The Mangrove Breakthrough represents a significant stride towards reducing carbon emissions and preserving our planet’s natural treasures. The UAE recognises the paramount importance of mangroves in combating climate change and supporting our coastal communities, and we look forward to helping drive real on-the-ground change. I invite nations around the globe to support this unique initiative.” 

Ultimately, COP28 in the UAE, represents the perfect opportunity to pivot from climate pledges to implementation, using all possible approaches, so we can collectively reach the defined goal of limiting global warming to ~1.5 °C. 

The UAE’s Undeniable Climate Leadership 

As the United Arab Emirates leads the regional Race to Zero, we continue to enhance our economy in line with the vision of our wise leadership to adopt policies that foster sustainable practices in various sectors, especially in transport, manufacturing and agriculture. As well as adopting green infrastructure urban planning to perfect our union’s sustainable socio-economic development. 

These policies and initiatives were pinpointed during the “Road to COP28: Driving Collective Action in the UAE” event earlier this year, hosted by HE Razan Al Mubarak, UN Climate Change High-Level Champion for COP28. And as we create our sustainable future, the thriving business community across all sectors and company sizes are abiding by their commitments to net-zero emissions and exploiting every new inch that climate action opens on the path towards green transition. 

The fact that the UAE will establish the first-ever Education Pavilion in the history of COPs showcases the country’s efforts in leading regional and international efforts to include green education in the educational systems, as we focus on designing a new pathway to greener schools. We believe that education holds a unique position where it can build eco-conscious curriculums and schools, while taking the training of educators to the next level so they can play their role in instilling climate knowledge in the minds of learners of all ages, to prepare them from an early age for building sustainable green communities. 

Dubai is on its path to actualize the shift to implementation that was pushed to the top of the priorities list in Sharm Al Sheikh, through the non-stop efforts of the COP28 Presidency under the leadership of HE Dr. Sultan Ahmed Al Jaber, President-Designate for COP28, UAE. HE Dr. Al Jaber also spoke during the New York Climate Week earlier this year about the undeniable correlation between climate change and health, highlighting the lack of focus on this crucial aspect, which he plans to change during COP28, stating: “Our goal is to build resilient, equitable health systems capable of withstanding the impact of climate change.” 

Last September, HE Hamid Al Zaabi, Director General of the UAE’s Executive Office of Anti-Money Laundering and Counter-Terrorism Financing, clearly expressed that the UAE views poaching, illegal wildlife trade and trafficking as an imminent threat and a form of climate terrorism. Highlighting another front where the UAE leads the global crackdown on financial crimes funding wildlife trafficking, and worsening the biodiversity crisis. 

While the Sharjah Research, Technology, and Innovation Park (SRTIP) continues to be an active player in its mission of supporting and funding environment-friendly innovations, in fields like green transportation, sustainable infrastructure, solar power, green hydrogen energy and more.  

Earlier this year, the Sharjah Advanced Industry Accelerator (SAIA), has received more than 3500 submissions to its global innovative competition, the majority of which were centered around sustainability projects, energy technologies, transport logistics, environmental analysis, water technologies and beyond. 

Meanwhile in Abu Dhabi, Masdar, who has played a vital role in the country’s clean energy agenda since establishing the Abdu Dhabi Sustainability Week in 2008, continues to push forward to maintain the local, regional and global climate action momentum. 

Masdar, on its part, will host Youth 4 Sustainability forum during COP28. The company has been increasingly investing in renewable energy projects across more than 40 countries worldwide on its quest to achieve 100 gigawatts of power from renewables and to produce 1 million tonnes of green hydrogen per year by 2030. 

While the Abu Dhabi Sustainability Week organization prepares a series of structured collaborative activities to be run through the “ADSW Partnership Fund” planned to be held in the Green Zone at Dubai EXPO City during COP28. Simultaneously, keeping the focus on bolstering the role of women and young girls in climate change through its WiSER Initiative. 

Worth noting also, is the establishment of “Surpluss”, the Online sustainability exchange, which has been officially designated as an Accelerator by the UN-backed Race to Zero. A global campaign that catalyzes climate action for non-state actors to take rigorous and immediate action to cut global emissions in half by 2030. 

We have only highlighted some of many examples of the continuous efforts the UAE is dedicating to saving the future of our planet and our offspring. 

A New Climate Financial Infrastructure 

Did you know the world needs over $2.4 Trillion yearly to meet the climate challenge? And that less than 5% of this amount gets mobilized by donor countries annually?! 

This major challenge will be addressed at COP28 this year, as the world will try through the UAE to rebuild the confidence in the climate financial infrastructure. The stakes are high, and the risks are usually unpredictable, sudden and disastrous for people’s lives, especially in developing countries. 

At COP28, the UAE is committed to bringing this challenge to center-stage so we can implement the much-needed reforms to the current financial system, direct sufficient investments to new zero-carbon energy resources, agriculture, manufacturing and transportation systems, and increase the resilience of the Global South to climate change-induced natural disasters such as heatwaves, floods, droughts, famines, or storms. 

The world needs a significant economic transformation in the caliber of the industrial revolution, and COP28 holds great importance as it would start building on the momentum of on-going initiatives, such as the French Summit for a New Global Financing Pact, the Africa Climate Summit and the Barbados Bridgetown Initiative, to deliver tangible outcomes and solutions that could save the world. 

Nfinity8 will continue to play its role of boosting climate knowledge as part of the UAE society and the global community’s journey towards a better, cleaner and greener future for all humankind. 

As we approach COP28, we believe that augmenting Climate Knowledge is of prime importance to get everyone involved in shaping a cleaner future for the UAE and all humankind. Let’s launch into a trip to the climate space together. 

The Essential UNFCCC Secretariat 

The UNFCCC secretariat (UN Climate Change) is a United Nations entity formed in 1992 in Rio De Janeiro, as the main framework for international cooperation in combating climate change. A global assembly that amalgamates all worldwide responses and actions into a global synergy of climate action. 

For the last 30 years, UNFCCC has been a beehive of climate works that kept on increasing its institutional maturity and complexity until it reached an undeniable level of established architecture and hierarchy. It gained the international confidence it now enjoys as the main framework that aligns all global efforts towards achieving the common climate objectives. 

Its comprehensive strive to support the Kyoto Protocol and the Paris Agreement has augmented the scope of climate action into the concepts of increasing resilience and assistance climate programs directed to developing countries. Providing the basis on which all involved parties would play their parts in the global climate action strategy. 

What is the Global Stocktake (GST)? 

GST, Global Stocktake is a crucial mechanism through which the world aims to ensure the accelerated advancement of collective global climate actions to achieve our common goals. 

The primary role of the Global Stocktake is to measure the progress of climate action beyond the national level, as it evaluates the progression the entire world collectively made to achieve the climate goals set and ratified in the Paris Agreement, as well as detecting the gaps which would need to be bridged. 

GST assesses global climate action based on the following main aspects: 

1-     Mitigation 
To evaluate the global efforts of greenhouse gas emissions reduction to keep the global temperature rise below 2°C, or in an ideal world below 1.5°C. 

2-     Adaptation 
To measure each country’s progress to enhance its resilience and reduce vulnerability to adverse climate impacts. 

3-     Implementation 
To assess means of implementation and the alignment of financial flows, technology transfer and capacity building to climate-resilient development and supporting developing nations to achieve emissions reduction objectives and NDCs. 

But this mechanism exceeds the role of assessment, towards the bigger role of providing all concerned parties with the guiding foundation which leads governments and non-state actors towards boosting their climate action plans and Nationally Determined Contributions (NDC), and enhancing international cooperation between all NDCs. 

GST is designed to be conducted quinquennially, which means that every five years all signatory countries of the Paris Agreement, need to be informed about their updated NDCs to ensure that the steps each party takes, is an ambitious and effective contribution in the global drive towards conquering climate change. The stocktake will also establish the basis that enables all signatory countries to update and enhance their NDCs due to be done by 2025. 

This is the direction that each country’s efforts in the world need to be directed towards contributing with the most transformative plans of action across all fields and sectors of their national economies. And now, we will move on to highlighting the two main categories of climate action plans that the UNFCCC framework adopts. 

The Impact and Integration of NDCs and NAPs 

NDCs 

NDC stands for Nationally Determined Contributions, which is the required internal plan of each country that covers all the climate efforts across the sectors of the country’s economy in a comprehensive country plan that gets periodically updated, which eventually acts as a clear benchmark to assess and report the country’s progress. 

Each NDC has to use the most advanced technologies to achieve its climate commitments, define what assistance the country might need to execute the plan and continue to move forward by making each NDC more ambitious than the previously decided one. 

Finally, all the countries’ NDCs will be assembled as a global report of mitigation policies, programmes and actions. In the UNFCCC secretariat’s “NDC Synthesis Report”. 

The Global Stocktake system creates the groundwork for countries to update and improve their NDCs, which 

It is a system of commitments, checks and balances designed to push the boundaries of each country and boost the collaboration and integration of all the global efforts to warrant the best results and elevate our common ambitions to take every measure necessary to conquer the climate change crisis. 

But for these objectives to be reached, all concerned parties need to be as transparent as possible. And HE Dr Sultan Bi Ahmed Al Jaber put it best earlier this year when he announced: “We must be brutally honest about the gaps that need to be filled, the root causes and how we got to this place here today,” 

NAPs 

The UNFCCC was very keen on ensuring that whatever plans have been put in the developing countries’ NDCs, are receiving adequate support to make it easier for developing countries to adapt their planning with their set NDC and with the efforts of other developing and developed countries. 

This is where the importance of National Adaptation Plans (NAP) concept came into the picture since COP16, which was held in Cancun, Mexico. It clearly defines the needs of the Least Developing Countries (LDCs) and ensures that their medium to long-term adaptation needs are fulfilled, with the proper strategies. 

It is a process that helps countries look into their current and future climate risks and footprints and detect their gaps and vulnerabilities to eventually adapt these into their climate strategies. 

And the UNFCCC Secretariat has put in place the UN4NAPs initiative, which acts as an open channel for all countries to request data, technical information and support from other countries and grants them access to all the global climate expertise on climate action. 

These complementary and comprehensive efforts and all the attached local, regional and global initiatives and programs act in unison to advance the climate knowledge base, encourages the local and indigenous communities to take an essential part in their countries’ NDPs and NAPs, which leads to increasing the countries’ resilience by avoiding the loss and damage that might be caused by the adverse effects of climate change on both land and sea so that we can leave a safer and more sustainable future for our youth. 

Youth crucial role in shaping the planet’s future 

The future is for our youth, which is why the young men and women in this generation must be a part of the climate decision-making, as they are the ones who will shape that cleaner, greener and better future we all hope and work for. 

In light of this, our wise government has chosen 100 youth delegates from around the world to actively participate in efforts to protect our planet’s future on the personal, organizational, local and global levels. 

This inspiring decision is designed to enkindle engagement and a sense of responsibility regarding climate-conscious actions, for the youth to be a part of devised climate strategies and to acclimate their careers and lifestyles to the needs of the global movement towards a sustainable life on Earth. 

Even on a personal level, actions like opting to use public transportation or switching to electric vehicles instead of fuel-reliant private vehicles, supporting eco-friendly producers and reducing their carbon footprint and waste, going paperless and even vegan diets and improved cooking equipment are profoundly effective personal actions, if they are collectively adopted by enthusiastic young individuals. 

As we approach the launch of COP28 in the great Emirate of Dubai, various companies in the UAE are launching initiatives to engage the youth in projects and workshops to develop their knowledge and awareness and practical skills in sustainability, renewable energy, climate advocacy and all green practices. 

The most prominent example of this youth-engaging approach in the Youth 4 Sustainability (Y4S) initiative, developed by Abu Dhabi’s Future Energy Company (Masdar). Through this, the company invests in enabling young people and developing their skills to lead the future of sustainability. 

Last April, ten young climate activists from six different nationalities, alongside delegates from the United Arab Emirates, officially met at the Dubai Youth Hub as a significant manifestation of youth involvement in COP28, and in the climate action space in general. 

These brilliant young delegates got engaged in extensive discussions on encouraging youth to be involved in the climate conversation, planning their roadmap of collaboration as they move towards COP28, and the 18th UN Climate Change Conference of Youth (COY18) through initiatives such as the Youth Climate Champion, and institutes like the Arab Youth Center and the Federal Youth Authority. 

The UAE’s Ministry of Culture and Youth launched the first UAE Youth Climate Delegates Program in March 2023. A program which aims to act as a hub for youth voices in climate action, to increase their awareness and leverage their energy to empower them to get more involved in leading the way towards achieving a better future for themselves and the world. 

The UAE is actively involved in this youth empowerment model as part of its commitments towards climate action through the energy of youth. 

COP28 inspires the youth in our society and business world to get more involved in combating climate change, and it will indeed represent a significant step forward on our path towards making our planet a sustainable habitat. 

See you in Part 3 as we continue at Nfinity8, to empower the public with the essential climate knowledge.