Labworx

In November and December of last year, the UAE played host to COP28, the climate summit which draws world leaders, decisionmakers, industry experts and various other stakeholders together to try and address the challenges of global climate change. Many good things came out of the conference, such as the creation of a new fund to help vulnerable nations meet their needs and the inclusion of the term “fossil fuels” in the draft agreement for the first time.

One other flagship development of COP28 was the announcement of the UAE Framework for Global Climate Resilience (UAE FGCR), which builds upon the Global Goal on Adaptation (GGA) first introduced at the Paris summit in 2015. However, the UAE FCGR goes much further than the GGA in providing an overarching pathway towards adaptation. Laying solid foundations

Upon its launch in 2015, the GGA promised to drive efforts towards “enhancing adaptive capacity, strengthening resilience and reducing vulnerability to climate change”. Unfortunately, the next few years saw sluggish progress on the topic, but the two-year Glasgow-Sharm-el-Sheikh (GlaSS) work programme, which consisted of consultations and workshops with hundreds of scientists and government officials from all over the world, injected some impetus into the process.

Those discussions came to their culmination at COP28 with the conception of the UAE FGCR. The text was expanded to include a long-term vision for the “collective wellbeing of all people, the protection of livelihoods and economies and the preservation and regeneration of nature”. As such, it serves as a more robust foundation upon which to build in the future. Outlining 11 targets

Another key breakthrough achieved with the UAE FGCR was the crystallisation of 11 targets geared towards better shaping the framework for improving methods of monitoring, evaluation and learning (MEL) systems in countries around the world.

Seven of these targets are tied to key themes, issues and industries, namely the following:

• Cultural heritage

• Food and agriculture
• Ecosystems and biodiversity
• Health
• Infrastructure
• Poverty and livelihoods
• Water

Additionally, there are four more targets that are intended to deal with the various dimensions of the iterative adaptation cycle. These targets coincide with those defined by the National Adaptation Plan (NAP) process and are comprised of the following:

• Conducting impact, vulnerability and risk assessments
• Planning for adaptation
• Implementing adaptation plans and actions
• Establishing MEL systems for adaptation

Through these targets, the UAE FGCR has laid the foundation for developing a robust system of measuring individual countries’ efforts to adapt to a sustainable future and holding those accountable who are lagging behind. Nonetheless, much work is still to be done.

What must happen next

While the UAE FGCR made some significant strides towards the ultimate goal of facilitating a smooth, fair and efficient transition to adaptable systems and technologies, it did fall short in some areas. Perhaps most prominently, the discussions did not produce a consensus on exactly how these ideas can be implemented, with the building of capacity and the transfer of technologies – as well as the all-important financing behind everything – absent from the final text.

As such, it is these areas which now demand the attention of policymakers and politicians all over the globe. The UAE FGCR did accommodate future progress with the creation of a UAE-Belém work programme designed to help identify concrete indicators for each of the targets outlined above. This, as well as more focused discussion on implementation at the upcoming SB60 UN Climate Conference in Bonn and COP29 in Azerbaijan, will be instrumental in building on the good work started by the UAE FGCR.

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