by Climate Spotlight Staff
“The world is playing catch-up in keeping global temperatures below 1.5 degrees,” Sultan Ahmed Al Jaber, COP28 president-designate, told participants at the World Government Summit, held in Dubai in February 2023. His home country, the United Arab Emirates (UAE), will host this year’s upcoming climate change conference.
The UAE has the world’s seventh largest oil reserves, and the seventh largest natural gas reserves, according to data from its Washington D.C. embassy. The country claims it is the first in the Middle East to set a Net Zero target for 2050, and says, “We have taken aggressive action to diversify the UAE energy mix and economy.”
The country will host the 28th Conference of Parties to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (COP28) between November and December 2023 at Expo City Dubai. COP28 marks the conclusion of the first Global Stocktake – a process designed to assess the global response to the climate crisis.
“We already know that we are way off track,” Sultan Al Jaber told the body. He emphasized the hard reality is that global emissions must fall by 43% by 2023.
The UAE, for its part, has begun its diversification into a mixed energy economy. In 2022, the state-owned Abu Dhabi National Oil Company entered into a partnership with Masdar, a renewable energy company.
“This strategic partnership will launch with over 23GW of current committed, and exclusive renewable energy capacity. It immediately positions Masdar as one of the largest clean energy companies globally, with ambition to grow to well over 50GW by 2030,” the UAE energy diversification plan states.
Al Jaber also stated that he will advance efforts to secure the capital necessary to make the Loss and Damage fund a reality and operational. Calling the establishment of the L&D fund a “key to a fair deal on Climate finance for the Global South.”
The Loss and Damage Fund was officially established at COP27 in Egypt last year. A Transitional Committee was established to operationalize new funding arrangements and a dedicated fund to assist developing countries in addressing loss and damage associated with climate change.
The first meeting was held in March this year, with another conducted in early June. Two additional meetings are scheduled for August and September of this year, leading up to the COP set to begin in late November.
The committee aims to make recommendations for consideration and adoption. COP28 President-designate Al Jaber will preside over these talks.
