At the climate frontier: Sheikha Shamma’s mission to turn talk into bold action

Environmentalist sets out risks for region as global temperatures rise

Sheikha Shamma bint Sultan is the founder of the UAE Independent Climate Change Accelerators, which has rebranded as Frontier 25. Photo: UICCA

The rest of the world is oblivious to the scale of the climate crisis facing the Middle East, leading Emirati environmentalist Sheikha Shamma bint Sultan has told The National.

Sheikha Shamma warned that the time for talking about how to tackle climate change is over, with the emphasis now firmly on taking action instead of wondering about the best way to proceed.

“The year 2024 marked the first time global temperatures breached 1.5°C [above pre-industrial levels],” said Sheikha Shamma. “2025 is the year we must act … bold action can still shape what comes next.”

Sheikha Shamma made her comments as the UAE Independent Climate Change Accelerators (UICCA), the non-profit she founded in 2022 to drive cross-sector collaboration on sustainability, was rebranded as Frontier 25. “We’ve built trust, but now we need to scale,” she said “The rebrand to Frontier 25 gives us the clarity to do that, to communicate who we are and focus on what works.”

Global crisis

Sheikha Shamma’s awareness of the region’s fragility was sharpened during recent strategy sessions with the World Economic Forum during the second edition of the We the UAE 2031 Strategic Intelligence Councils.

“When I raised climate refugees as a potential shock for the Middle East, people were surprised,” she said. “But already, seven million people are moving across this region because of climate pressures. The risks are real and growing.”

The Middle East is warming at twice the global average, according to Greenpeace, with water scarcity, food insecurity and heat extremes driving migration and instability. A UICCA report from February showed in each year this century, climate disasters in the Middle East and Central Asia have, on average, injured and displaced seven million people and killed more than 2,600, as well as causing $2 billion worth of damage in the process.

Embedding sustainability

Looking ahead, Sheikha Shamma envisions a region where sustainability is not a department or a title but a mindset woven through every institution. “My hope is that in 10 years, sustainability won’t be a side function, it will be core to every boardroom decision,” she said. “We won’t need chief sustainability officers because every executive will be one.”

Education, capacity building and transparency are central to that vision.

Hope at the edge

As the planet edges past climate tipping points, “frontier” is an apt term, representing the boundary between catastrophe and course correction. But for Sheikha Shamma, it is also a place of opportunity. “Our region has always lived at frontiers, of trade, of innovation, of culture,” she said. “We know how to navigate hard environments and find solutions where others see obstacles.”

In a decade that demands unprecedented co-operation and courage, Frontier 25’s mission is clear: to help the UAE, and by extension the region, turn its climate ambition into action. “It’s a renewed commitment to act, and to act now.”