The UAE and the UK have agreed to engage in closer co-operation in the lead-up to Cop28 to keep global warming targets within reach.
Both countries will work together to shape a response to the global stocktake and push forward with a ground-breaking agenda on clean technology solutions at the climate summit in Dubai in November.
During a visit to London, Dr Sultan Al Jaber, Minister of Industry and Advanced Technology and Cop28 President-designate, met UK Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero Grant Shapps to discuss joint efforts to tackle climate change.
Photos of the meeting were posted on the Cop28 UAE Twitter account, with a message hailing the “productive discussions”.
“They agreed on closer co-operation to advance the Breakthrough Agenda and shape a bold response to the #GlobalStocktake on the road to #COP28UAE,” the message read.
Mr Shapps said that the meeting demonstrated that the UK and UAE were working together to “build the solutions we need” to grow the economy.
He said the two countries would extend co-operation in the run-up to Cop28, which opens on November 30 in Dubai. “Sultan Al Jaber’s visit to London was a key milestone on that mission as we forge stronger ties between our countries,” he said.
The Breakthrough Agenda is an unprecedented international clean technology plan that aims to keep the 1.5C goal in reach.
Dr Al Jaber also met London Mayor Sadiq Khan, chairman of the C40 Cities, a global network of nearly 100 cities that aim to confront the climate crisis and create a future in which all can thrive.
Dr Al Jaber and Mr Khan discussed greater co-operation for sustainable cities as part of their commitment to Cop28.
Majid Al Suwaidi, director general of Cop28, was among those present at the discussions and on Tuesday appeared at a panel event titled Countdown to Cop28 at the Natural History Museum in central London. The event was one of several held across the UK capital to mark London Climate Action Week.
Mr Al Suwaidi said the global community needs to use Cop28 as a moment to “course correct”.
“If leaders don’t know that already, then we have a lot of work to do,” he said.
At the beginning of 2023 many leaders viewed the global stocktake as a “report card” without a “forward-looking component”, he said.
Now their approach is different.
“I would say that the difference that we see in our engagement with leadership from the beginning of the year to now is night and day,” he said.
“We’ve put in a lot of hard work as a presidency to get everybody on track to saying where we’re going forward and what we’re going to do to respond to the global stocktake.”
There are several key moments on the path to Cop28 which will be important spaces for leaders to discuss climate change, he said. He listed the G20 meeting in Delhi in September, the 78th session of the UN General Assembly in September, and the meetings of the World Bank Group and International Monetary Fund in Marrakech in October as examples.
“We as a Cop presidency are going to be convening discussions at each of these events,” he said. “Plus we may have others that help that process.”
Mr Al Suwaidi emphasised the important role the UAE is playing in hosting Cop28, but said whether headway is made in the fight against global warming comes down to world leaders.
“We need to tell our leaders that they need to come up with those solutions,” he told the audience. “This is a party-driven process.
“We as a Cop presidency can provide the platform. We can show the path, but we need your leaders to tell us what they're going to do about the future. And so we are there to help that conversation. We need everybody to come together.
“Certainly in our meetings as we go around the world, that desire is there and that momentum is there and so we feel very excited about that.”
Mr Al Suwaidi said while he was hopeful of change, the needle must move “in a significant way” and touched on the challenges facing the international community ahead of Cop28, including raising capital to tackle global warming.
He said the communal pot must increase from hundreds of billions of dollars to trillions of dollars if the fight against climate change is to be won.
“We know that that can't happen alone from governments. Concessional finance or government support needs to leverage private-sector finance,” he said.
He added that the next seven years will be “critical” in the fight to reverse the effects of climate change and called for solutions to be implemented at pace to get major projects up and running.
Mr Al Suwaidi said investing in green energy “must make economic sense”, highlighting the UAE’s eagerness to invest in eco-friendly energy.
