By Cassey Le Pelley, for CNN • Published 11th June 2020
Much as Dubai is moving with the times, its leader is joining in on the action by saying that the city will host a United Nations climate conference from 2023 onwards.
Dubai ruler Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, the vice president and prime minister of the United Arab Emirates, made the announcement at the annual World Government Summit, which concluded on Tuesday.
Prior to hosting the United Nations Conference on Climate Change (COP28) in 2023, Dubai will host COP22, according to the website of the World Government Summit.
The 2020 COP conference is already set to take place in Bonn, Germany. Paris, Switzerland, is hosting COP24 from December 3-14.
The process aims to tackle the challenges of global warming and efforts to prevent it from worsening.
Global goals
The United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change was established in 1992 in Kyoto, Japan, with the goal of agreeing upon global action to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
Setting overarching goals and taking the lead are fundamental to forging the necessary partnerships to meet the goals, a UN publication on climate change says.
“Existing structures need to be adapted to new realities. They should be more transparent and more effective in support of the transformation to a new energy economy,” the publication says.
According to the website of the World Government Summit, the global aim of COP23 is to:
— Transform how we work and how we earn and spend our money
— Move towards a circular economy that limits and returns to nature energy and materials that have been used;
— Develop a common system of accounting for environmental effects
— Strengthen the review and accountability of national emissions
— Advance a multi-stakeholder “smart economy”
— Strengthen cooperation with the private sector and other stakeholders
— Increase the level of confidence and secure finance
— Ensure that climate ambition in the direction of the Paris Agreement is scaled up
By the Numbers
China, the US and the European Union, along with the rest of the G7 countries, signed the Paris Agreement on climate change in 2015, committing to limiting global warming to below 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit) by 2100
The agreement commits them to cutting their global emissions by “at least” 40% below 2010 levels by 2030
There is an unspoken understanding that, on some matters of international climate policy, the United States is currently out in the cold.
But President Donald Trump’s decision to pull the US out of the Paris Agreement in 2017, and his campaign pledge to “cancel” the agreement, will loom large over this year’s COP meeting.
UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has warned that the risks of inaction are higher than at any time in history, particularly with regard to the poorest and most vulnerable.
“I am here as a messenger of peace for the people of the world,” Guterres said in a speech at the opening of this year’s UN climate conference.
“I am not here to deliver headlines, my aim is to change mindsets.”