Shorouk Awad (Dubai)
The United Arab Emirates, through the “fifty-year plans”, is entering a new phase of creating a sustainable environmental future for future generations, away from dependence on oil resources, and with it its regional and global position in the environmental sector is consolidated, as it is the lifeblood of the various vital sectors of the country, while promoting the upgrading of its competitiveness. Its output process represented in preserving natural resources and biodiversity, ensuring their sustainability, reducing the repercussions of climate change as the greatest threat to humanity and the planet together, and enhancing food security, sustainability and safety.
Creating a sustainable environmental future for generations is one of the most prominent plans announced by the Ministry of Climate Change and Environment within the components of the comprehensive development plan of the Emirates, which is one of the most prominent plans in support of the “next fifty years”, by supporting the state’s directions to focus entirely on preserving the environment. of human and climatic threats and ensuring their sustainability in a better and more active way, in order to achieve an environmental development boom, through integration between the ministry and state institutions in all their specializations and at their federal and local levels, to build a clean, sustainable environment that guarantees all the gains achieved during the past years.
The manufacture of a sustainable environmental future for future generations contributes to achieving the country’s goals, enhancing its global competitiveness and keeping pace with the future visions of its wise leadership. It also relies on two main directions: supporting and enhancing food security, sustainability and safety, and continuing to support its work for the climate and environment, preserving its natural resources and biodiversity and ensuring their sustainability. .
The state’s first approach, which is to enhance food security, sustainability and safety and raise self-sufficiency rates, is based on ensuring food safety to achieve the highest levels of protection for public health, strengthening the state’s leadership as a major center for food trade regionally and globally, and providing the highest levels of confidence and security in the safety of food traded locally, imported and re-exported It is also based on several axes that include supporting and developing local agricultural and animal production through the use of modern technologies and systems, and stimulating the investment movement in modern agricultural projects, which ensures the increase of local production, raising its efficiency and competitiveness, and working to reduce food waste rates in order to achieve a sustainable production and consumption system.
As for the second orientation of the state plan, which is based on the axes of climate, environment and biodiversity, in order to achieve its position and its leading role globally in working for the climate and stimulating investment operations in future energy and green technologies, in a way that enhances the capabilities of all parties in the country to adapt to the repercussions of climate change.
The state also seeks, through its specialized institutions, to create a sustainable future, to strengthen the blue economy system; With the aim of increasing local economic growth, protecting the marine environment, ensuring the sustainability of its resources and biodiversity, working to ensure its preservation, ensuring the sustainability of natural systems, expanding breeding programs and protecting endangered species. economic, and increase partnership with the private sector to stimulate investment in this field.
work career
The state’s march and work for the environment coincide with its establishment and launch in the early seventies of the last century. Six months after its founding, an official delegation participated in the first United Nations conference for the protection of the environment, and with the passage of 3 years, the first federal environment authority was established and the first environmental law was passed in the country, to continue The march is then based on achieving the desired balance between growth and preserving the ecosystem, in the sustainability of its resources and the preservation of its biodiversity, in order to ensure a clean and safe green environment and to contribute to providing prosperity, well-being, health, stability and happiness for current and future generations, and to confirm its leadership in the field of sustainable environmental work.
Certainly, the country will succeed in creating the desired environmental future, as a result of placing environmental sustainability at the top of its priorities, as a strategy since its establishment, and over the past 50 years, thanks to the visions and directives of its wise leadership, a pioneering model in the environmental field with all its environmental, natural and climatic ramifications. Which enabled it to achieve many achievements at the local, regional and global levels, including, but not limited to, the increase in the number of declared nature reserves to 49 in 2020, and the enjoyment of a unique diversity of natural habitats as a result of its efforts to protect the local environment and its components, It includes more than 50 types of habitats, including coral reefs, seagrass, mangroves, marshes and sand dunes. Accordingly, important and unique types of plants, animals, terrestrial and marine invertebrates have been recorded and documented in more than 3787 species.
Foreseeing the future
The state’s climate action model relied on two main directions, the first represented in reducing the causes of change represented in the rates of greenhouse gas emissions, especially carbon emissions, and the second in enhancing the capabilities of all sectors to adapt to its current and future repercussions. 2017-2050), the National Program for Adaptation to Climate Change was launched, and the Federal Law on Climate Change was completed, and work is underway to adopt and promulgate it to be the first law specialized in this regard in the region and many others.
In its future directions, the UAE model of working for the climate is no longer limited to a specific sector. Rather, its wise leadership, according to its forward-looking vision for the future, has adopted the integration of climate action in the future strategies of all sectors, as the state has adopted several directions and policies, including the transformation towards the economy. Green, which came from the model of transforming challenges into growth opportunities, as this economic system promotes preserving the environment, protecting and achieving its sustainability, while at the same time ensuring recording economic growth rates for new areas and activities, including: environmentally friendly public transportation and transportation, and the expansion of the dissemination and use of energy solutions Renewable energy, as the UAE has become one of the most important international players in it, and the production capacity of renewable energy is expected to reach 9 gigawatts at the local level by 2030. Green and blue hydrogen production projects have also been launched as a new source of the local energy mix.
Energy Solutions
Globally, the UAE has promoted the dissemination and use of renewable energy solutions by hosting the permanent headquarters of the International Renewable Energy Agency (which currently has 184 member states), and it has provided development aid worth more than $1 billion to establish renewable energy plants in 70 countries, through a partnership between the International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA) » And the Abu Dhabi Fund for Development, work has been done to spread and use renewable energy solutions by financing and implementing a group of them in the island countries of the Pacific Ocean and the Caribbean, with a value of $350 million, and Masdar Company, through direct investment, manages a renewable energy portfolio with a production capacity of 10.7 gigawatts per year. More than 30 countries, and the launch of the project for the peaceful use of nuclear energy in the production of electric power “Barakah” with a production capacity of 5,600 megawatts, which entered its first station for service and is expected to provide 25% of the country’s electricity needs with its full completion, and the application of the system of green standards in Construction and real estate projects, expansion of modern farming systems and promoting the employment of innovation and modern technologies in this field.
hosting ‘cup’
The insightful vision of the UAE government, its good planning for the future, its preparation for its developments with a creative agenda, and thoughtful planning that includes global issues, including the issue of climate change, confirms the reason for winning the support and support of most countries of the world, to host the work of the 28th session of the COP.28 Climate Conference, to be It was held in Abu Dhabi in 2023, which is an indication of the unprecedented global and historical efforts that the UAE has achieved over the past years towards becoming a global center for mobilizing efforts and energies to confront the challenge of climate change and offering solutions and initiatives that contribute to accelerating efforts to protect the environment and biodiversity.
«Cup 26»
During the activities of the Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate (COP26), the country announced a set of measures in support of its march in climate action, including: Raising its ambition to plant mangroves from 30 million – which were identified in the second report of contributions Nationally Determined – to 100 million trees by 2030, endorse the (COP26) Leaders’ Declaration on Forests and Land Use that commits countries to cooperate and work collectively to halt forest loss, rehabilitation and land degradation by 2030, catalyze the global movement towards sustainable development, and endorse the Leaders’ Pledge towards Nature”, which commits the international community to take the necessary steps to achieve sustainable development and put nature and biodiversity on the path to recovery by 2030, as part of the work of the next decade of the United Nations.
sustainable agriculture
The state’s actions also include supporting the work policy agenda to shift to sustainable food and agriculture, launching a road map for pioneering hydrogen production, with the aim of acquiring 25% of the market for this clean source of energy in the future, and launching the “agri-climate innovation” initiative in partnership with the United States of America, which aims To develop climate-smart agricultural systems globally, announce joining the Global Methane Charter, which aims to reduce methane emissions rates by 30% by the end of the current decade, and launch the global platform to accelerate the deployment of renewable energy projects and solutions in developing countries in partnership with IRENA.
And the launch of two initiatives to enhance partnership between the public and private sectors in climate action: the “Posterity 20” initiative, which is the first regional initiative that aims to identify and highlight the top 20 opinion and thought leaders in the field of sustainability in the Middle East and North Africa, and an initiative to encourage the launch of Business incubators in the field of climate change, which is the first capital fund targeting positive impact in the region through a joint investment model with major regional companies to support and expand the scope of entrepreneurship and emerging companies in the field of clean technology in the Middle East, Africa and Southeast Asia, and the fund seeks to provide investment opportunities for the sector Private at the regional and international levels interested in green and sustainable projects.
trends and policies
The UAE has adopted and adopted a set of trends and policies that constitute a general framework for the work of all sectors, including: the transformation towards a green economy, energy transformation, the country’s general environmental policy, the circular economy policy, the national plan for climate change, the national program to adapt to its repercussions and the adoption of the work integration approach Climate change in the strategies of all sectors, the most important of which is the agricultural sector through the expansion of the dissemination and use of modern sustainable farming systems, and joining the global initiative “Agricultural Innovation for Climate”. The announcement of the strategic initiative to achieve climate neutrality in the UAE 2050 – as a milestone – in a 3-decade march of climate action and a strategic vision for the next 3 decades, and represents an important driver of the UAE’s economic diversification strategy in order to develop new industries, technologies, skills and jobs, along with environment protection.
global indicators
The country’s achievements at the regional and global levels are represented by its ranking, according to the Competitiveness Yearbook report, first globally in the Environmental Laws Index, first globally in the Satisfaction Index with Conservation Efforts, and first in the world for preserving wetlands, and first globally in the Environmental Performance Index, and the Center The first regionally in the indicators of “wastewater treatment”, “pesticide regulation”, “marine protected areas”, “ISO 14001 environmental certificates” and many others, and for more than 3 decades, it has made tremendous efforts in the field of climate at both levels. Local and global since its accession to the Vienna Convention for the Protection of the Ozone Layer and the Montreal Protocol in 1989, then to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate in 1995, then to the Kyoto Agreement in 2005, and to hosting the permanent headquarters of the International Renewable Energy Agency “IRENA” 2009, and joining the Paris Climate Agreement as one of the The first region countries 2015, organizing the Abu Dhabi Climate Conference 2019, organizing the Abu Dhabi Climate Dialogue 2021, participating in the Leaders Climate Dialogue 2021, and requesting to host COP28 in 2023.
In December 2020, the country announced the second report of its Nationally Determined Contributions, which includes raising the ceiling of the emissions reduction target by 70 million tons by 2030, achieving a reduction in its total emissions intensity by 23.5% by 2030 compared to 2016 rates, and increasing the share of local clean energy. To reach a production capacity of 14 gigawatts by 2030, compared to 100 megawatts in 2015, and to continue implementing an integrated system of measures aimed at reducing the level of emissions in the main economic sectors (energy, transportation, industry, services, agriculture and waste), and continuing efforts to maintain systems The coastal environment, and the Blue Carbon Project by planting millions of trees, including mangroves, of which 30 million seedlings are planned to be planted by 2030.
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