COP28 President engages in candid talks on key takeaways from climate summit

Last year, the near-impossible took place at the strike of 11:13 am on December 13 as a representative of almost every country agreed to start cutting down on fossil fuels, in an effort to avert a global heating of 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels.

COP28 President Sultan Al Jaber called it a “historic” deal, noting the agreement calls for “transitioning away from fossil fuels in energy systems, in a just, orderly and equitable manner.” The landmark deal is informally known as the “UAE Consensus“.

UAE Consensus delivering package of ambitious outcomes

Now is the time to put the ambitious plans into action. Speaking to The National, Al Jaber has candidly talked about how the UAE Consensus came into being, key achievements of the global climate conference in Dubai, and the challenges that remain.

He highlighted: “From the beginning, we knew we had to deliver a different kind of COP in order to put the world on track to keeping 1.5 degrees Celsius within reach. We overwhelmingly delivered on that, with many amazing firsts,” reported the news agency.

Furthermore, Al Jaber said: “COP28 succeeded in uniting the world around a landmark response to the Global Stocktake, named ‘The UAE Consensus’, that delivered a package of ambitious and balanced outcomes across the entire climate agenda.”

The recently concluded climate conference marked an early success on its first day itself as hundreds of participants agreed to operationalise the Loss and Damage Fund, in order to compensate developing countries for the consequences of climate change.

COP28 producing practical road map in this critical decade

The UAE Consensus also delivered agreement on the global ambition to triple renewable energy capacity and double energy efficiency by 2030, and a clear call to rapidly reduce non-CO2 gases this decade, the COP28 President added.

In short, Al Jaber said the climate conference in Dubai managed to produce a practical road map to correct course in this critical decade for climate action, hoping the progress achieved at COP28 will be extended at COP29 in Azerbaijan and again at COP30 in Brazil.”