Sultan al-Jaber, head of state oil giant ADNOC and UAE "COP28" president, speaks at the inaugural UAE Climate Tech Conference in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates, May 10, 2023. REUTERS/Abdel Hadi Ramahi/File Photo Acquire Licensing Rights
BRUSSELS, July 13 (Reuters) – Countries at this year's U.N. climate summit must face up to how far behind they are lagging on climate change targets and agree a plan to get on track, the United Arab Emirates' incoming president of the event said on Thursday.
In a speech laying out the country's plan for the COP28 summit, to be held in Dubai in November, Sultan al-Jaber said the event should also yield international goals to triple renewable energy, double energy savings and hydrogen production by 2030.
"We must be brutally honest about the gaps that need to be filled, the root causes and how we got to this place here today," Jaber told a meeting in Brussels of climate ministers and officials from countries including Brazil, China, the United States and European Union members.
"Then we must apply a far-reaching, forward-looking, action-oriented and comprehensive response to address these gaps practically," he said.
The COP28 summit will be the first formal assessment of countries' progress towards the Paris Agreement's target to limit climate change to 1.5 Celsius (34.7 Fahrenheit) of warming. Countries' current policies and pledges would fail to meet that goal.
"We can't afford a meaningless stocktake. This is about accountability of our previous, present and future updates," Canadian Climate Minister Steven Guilbeault told Thursday's meeting.
The assessment at COP28 – known as the Global Stocktake – will increase pressure on major emitters to update their actions to cut greenhouse gas emissions.
Jaber said all governments should update their emissions-cutting targets by September, which the UAE did last month.
The UAE, a major OPEC oil exporter, has been under pressure to lay out its vision for the COP28 summit and guide preparations among the nearly 200 countries expected to attend.
A round of preparatory United Nations climate negotiations in June yielded little progress. Countries spent days wrangling over issues including whether to even discuss urgent CO2-cutting action – known in U.N. jargon as the "mitigation work programme".
Jaber, who is also the head of UAE state-owned oil company ADNOC, said the COP28 summit also aims to establish a promised fund to compensate poorer countries where climate change is inflicting irreparable damage.
Countries finally agreed at last year's U.N. climate talks to form the "loss and damage" fund – but left the toughest decisions for later, including which countries should pay into it.
Finance has dominated recent climate negotiations, as poorer nations demand greater support to both invest in low-carbon energy and cope with spiralling costs from droughts, floods and rising sea levels.
Jaber called for a "comprehensive transformation" of international financial institutions to unlock more capital to tackle climate change – echoing ideas put forward by climate-vulnerable nations including the Barbados-led "Bridgetown Initiative" to reform multilateral finance institutions.
Reporting by Kate Abnett, Bart Meijer and Maha El Dahan; Editing by Emelia Sithole-Matarise
Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.
Thomson Reuters
Kate Abnett covers EU climate and energy policy in Brussels, reporting on Europe’s green transition and how climate change is affecting people and ecosystems across the EU. Other areas of coverage include international climate diplomacy. Before joining Reuters, Kate covered emissions and energy markets for Argus Media in London. She is part of the teams whose reporting on Europe’s energy crisis won two Reuters journalist of the year awards in 2022.
Thomson Reuters
Maha reports on energy and commodities across the Middle East region. She has been working as a Reuters journalist for the past 15 years and has covered stories across Egypt, the Gulf, Yemen, Iraq, Syria, Lebanon and Jordan. She has previously managed the Lebanon, Syria, Jordan bureau. Contact: @mahaeldahan
The number of newborns with syphilis in the United States surged more than 10-fold in the last decade, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) reported on Tuesday.
Reuters, the news and media division of Thomson Reuters, is the world’s largest multimedia news provider, reaching billions of people worldwide every day. Reuters provides business, financial, national and international news to professionals via desktop terminals, the world's media organizations, industry events and directly to consumers.
Build the strongest argument relying on authoritative content, attorney-editor expertise, and industry defining technology.
The most comprehensive solution to manage all your complex and ever-expanding tax and compliance needs.
The industry leader for online information for tax, accounting and finance professionals.
Access unmatched financial data, news and content in a highly-customised workflow experience on desktop, web and mobile.
Browse an unrivalled portfolio of real-time and historical market data and insights from worldwide sources and experts.
Screen for heightened risk individual and entities globally to help uncover hidden risks in business relationships and human networks.
All quotes delayed a minimum of 15 minutes. See here for a complete list of exchanges and delays.
© 2023 Reuters. All rights reserved