Abu Dhabi: The United Nations has identified nine key areas in the fight against climate change, a high-level global summit in Abu Dhabi heard on Sunday.
These key areas, including energy, climate pollutants, forests, agriculture and others, have the greatest potential for fast, meaningful results, Ban Ki-moon, UN Secretary-General, said on the first-day of Abu Dhabi Ascent, a global summit on climate change.
The UAE is a champion in global efforts to check climate change, he added, and urged other nations to follow its example in terms of sustainability efforts and clean energy deployment.
Addressing the two-day summit, Shaikh Abdullah Bin Zayed Al Nahyan, UAE Foreign Minister, urged leaders and policy makers to foster meaningful discussion, enabling concrete and immediate action to avoid irreversible climate change.
“We are living in an interconnected world and what affects one country affects us all. In the UAE we have worked hard to ensure the long-term prosperity, growth and welfare of our people. Based on this vision, we have invested locally, regionally and internationally in projects, solutions and programmes that help mitigate climate change. We are proud that our pioneering efforts have encouraged other countries in the region to embrace clean technology.”
Shaikh Abdullah added: “Our national objectives include producing 24 per cent of our electricity from carbon-free sources by 2021. Through Masdar’s projects, we have achieved big progress in the field of solar energy, including the commissioning of Shams 1 concentrated solar power plant, with a capacity of 100MW. We have also commissioned the first phase of the 1000MW His Highness Shaikh Mohammad Bin Rashid Al Maktoum solar complex.”
“Organising this meeting in Abu Dhabi reflects the UN’s confidence in the active role the UAE is playing to mitigate climate change and that we are part of the solution,” Dr Sultan Al Jaber, the UAE Minister of State and Special Envoy for Energy and Climate Change, said.
“Together, we have a shared responsibility to deliver a decade of action where governments and the private sector come together and seize opportunities to advance clean technologies and set the foundation for a sustainable future.
“Our collaboration in Abu Dhabi and at the United Nations’ September summit in New York will establish a bottom-up approach for the top-down initiatives expected from the United Nations Climate Change Conference in December 2015. We must commit to a decade of action if we hope to successfully [limit or reverse] climate change,” Al Jaber said.
The two-day summit aims to encourage world leaders to make concrete commitments ahead of the UN Secretary General’s climate summit in New York in September.
This is the first global meeting after the recent release of the latest assessment report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). According to the report, it is estimated that the world has 15 years to reverse generations of carbon-intensive activity in order to avoid a global temperature increase of two degrees centigrade. This will require a total re-think about the industries that enabled Western economies to thrive and that are powering growth throughout the developed world.
The report gives the harshest wake-up call ever on global warming.
Ban said many of the solutions needed in the identified nine key areas already existed. Many others are being rapidly developed.
“But we need to deploy them at a scale that matches the challenge. And we need to do it now, because we may not get a second chance.”
He thanked the UAE for hosting the important meeting and for being pioneers on the journey to a low-carbon future. “It is the future we need and we have to lay the foundation by today. We have little time to lose.”
That is why it is important that governments complete a meaningful new climate agreement by 2015 that will rapidly reduce emissions and support resilience, Ban said.
The benefits of addressing climate change include reduced pollution, improved public health, fewer disasters, less poverty, cleaner, more efficient and affordable energy, better managed forests, liveable cities and increased food security.
“These are not distant dreams. Around the world, there is growing vanguard preparing to make them tomorrow’s reality,” Ban said.
But realising the benefits of climate action will demand global cooperation, especially in the areas of finance, investment and technology sharing.
Ban said developing countries are the most vulnerable to climate impacts.
“They are also where emissions are rising fastest,” he said.
