Chennai: COP 28 President-designate Sultan Al Jaber on Friday expressed concern that his call at last week’s meeting in Goa to triple renewable energy capacity by 2030 was yet to find expression in G20 outcomes.
COP 28 or Conference of the Parties of the United Nations Climate Change Conference is scheduled to be held in Expo City, Dubai, from November 30 to December 12, this year.
As a group, the G20 represents 85 per cent of the world’s GDP and 80 per cent of the world’s emissions. “What you decide will have a huge influence on outcomes for everyone, everywhere,” Al Jaber said while speaking at the fourth G20 Environment and Climate Sustainability Working Group and Ministerial Meeting here.
“There is still time for the G20 to show leadership, and I am calling on all of you to work with your leaders to drive global climate action in this critical decade,” he said. He even referred to his joint statement on July 27 calling upon the G20 to show leadership in closing the gaps across all of the pillars of the Paris Agreement and help the world get on track to limit global warming to 1.5 degree Celsius.
He said many indicators were going in the wrong direction. “Temperature records continue to be broken, with this month officially recorded as the hottest in history. We are losing biodiversity. Agricultural land is being degraded. And food insecurity is increasing,” Jaber said.
Transformation of food systems is also a top priority for the COP28 Presidency “and we need it to be your priority as well,” he said.
COP 28 will be the first edition of the conference to explicitly link climate impacts to global health, with a day dedicated to health issues, and the first-ever climate health ministerial meeting in partnership with the World Health Organisation.
The President-Designate invited all G20 nations to partner on this to ensure the resilience of global health systems.
During his visit, Al Jaber held strategic bilateral meetings with key environmental and climate ministers to build consensus on the road to COP 28. He also met Japan’s Minister for Environment Akihiro Nishimura, Brazil’s Minister for Environment and Climate Change Marina Silva, United States’ Special Presidential Envoy for Climate John Kerry, Germany’s Special Representative for International Climate Policy Jennifer Morgan and India’s Union Minister for Environment, Forest and Climate Change Bhupender Yadav.
Sultan’s visit to Chennai and the G20 closely follows his meetings in Bangladesh last week, where he met Bangladesh Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, and other global leaders to share his core action agenda.
