COP28 president-designate meets EU ministers to discuss climate plans and targets

Sultan Al-Jaber, the president-designate of the 2023 UN Climate Change Conference, COP28, met EU energy and environment ministers to discuss plans and objectives for the event, which is scheduled to begin in Dubai on Nov. 30.

The aim of the meetings was to generate momentum and enhance cooperation with the EU in efforts to drive action on climate finance and triple the global capacity of renewable energy, the Emirates News Agency reported on Tuesday.

Al-Jaber said his goal as president-designate is to establish a just energy transition that will ensure funding is available to all nations, particularly those in the Global South, to help address the effects of climate change and promote food security, healthcare and sanitation for all.

He highlighted the essential nature of a successful Global Stocktake, as part of the UN’s Framework Convention on Climate Change, to assess the current state of the planet, and emphasized the urgent need for a significant course correction to ensure global carbon emissions are reduced by 43 percent by 2030 and the energy transition is accelerated.

During his meetings with the ministers, Al-Jaber sought their assistance on these and other critical issues, including climate finance, the reform of international financial institutions, renewable energy, and hydrogen power.

“We have seven years to make a 43 percent reduction in global carbon emissions in order to keep 1.5 degrees Celsius within reach,” he said as he addressed the ministers, referring to the target of limiting the increase in global temperatures to 1.5 degrees above pre-industrial levels.

“At the same time, we will see a dramatic increase in energy demand as the global population rises. The need for robust, sustainable growth — while dramatically reducing emissions — is the critical challenge of our century. A system-wide transformation of entire economies is required.”

Al-Jaber emphasized the need to triple the global capacity of renewable energy sources, in local and international arenas, to help achieve the transition to green energy, and reiterated his request for all nations to unite behind the world’s first Global Renewables Pledge.

He also renewed his call, made in Vienna last week at the eighth OPEC International Seminar, for oil and gas-producing countries, and companies operating in the sector, to take action to achieve net-zero methane emissions by 2030 and net-zero on all carbon emissions by 2050.

He urged EU member states to take all necessary steps to increase the capacity of renewables, including “accelerating permission for projects and related infrastructure, expanding power-grid connections, increasing investment in technologies like storage, and increasing energy efficiencies.”

Turning his attention to historical climate-finance pledges, Al-Jaber said: “I am encouraged to believe that donors will finally meet the $100 billion commitment this year and we also need to operationalize the Loss and Damage fund this year.”

The fund, established during COP27 in Egypt last year, aims to provide financial support for vulnerable countries already experiencing the devastating effects of climate change.

“We need to streamline and simplify access to climate finance and find new and scalable mechanisms to channel substantial private-sector investment into the Global South,” Al-Jaber added.

“This will require major IFI (international financial institution) and MDB (multilateral development bank) reform to unlock concessional finance, lower risk and attract private finance at the scale and scope needed.

“No one has all the answers and there is no ‘one size fits all’ solution, but by working together we can make history together. COP28 must be a COP of action and a COP for all if we are to deliver the game-changing transformation that the world needs.”