More than 80,000 delegates, including more than 140 heads of state and government, will attend next year’s COP28 conference in the United Arab Emirates, said Sultan Ahmed Al Jaber, one of the ministers and the country’s special envoy for climate change. Al Jaber, who is the Minister of Industry and Advanced Technology and the UAE Special Envoy on Climate Change, stressed the importance of the UAE hosting the Conference of the Parties, saying that COP28 will be a significant global event to coincide with the country’s National Day and will be held at Expo City Dubai.
“COP2, to be held in 2023 in the United Arab Emirates, will welcome high-level participation including more than 140 heads of state and government, more than 80,000 delegates and more than 5,000 media professionals,” Al Jaber said on Tuesday. He said the UAE’s determination, its strong diplomatic relations with global countries and its pragmatic stance on climate action, backed by a proven track record in the energy and sustainability sectors, had led the country to secure an international consensus in 2021 that in 2023 will host COP28.
Al Jaber said the UAE is the first country in the region to ratify the Paris Agreement and announce a strategic initiative to achieve net zero by 2050. The United Arab Emirates is also home to the headquarters of the International Renewable Energy Agency. Al Jaber said the UAE has invested more than US$50 billion in clean energy projects in 70 countries, including 40 developing countries, and recently announced the UAE-US Partnership to Accelerate the Clean Energy Transition (PACE).
The project will catalyze $100 billion in financing, investment and other support and deploy 100 gigawatts of clean energy globally,” he said in a statement.”The COP is a global political, economic, scientific and social platform to achieve commitments to reduce the impact of climate change through negotiations and to assess progress on climate action,” he said. The 2022 United Nations Climate Change Conference or Conference of the Parties to the UNFCCC, more commonly referred to as COP27, was the 27th United Nations Climate Change Conference held from 6 November to 18 November 2022 in Sharm El Sheikh, Egypt.
The conference was extended by one day to allow participating countries to reach a consensus, this time a historic agreement that would create a fund to compensate poor countries that are victims of extreme weather exacerbated by rich countries’ carbon pollution.
