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Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates (3 June 2024) - Her Excellency Razan Khalifa Al Mubarak, the UN Climate Change High-Level Champion for COP28, is campaigning for an equitable, net-zero, resilient and nature-positive world at the Bonn Climate Change Conference this week.
The ten-day event which starts in the German city today is an important halfway point between COP28, which was held in the UAE last year, and COP29 which is taking place in Azerbaijan this November.
Typically, the conference in Bonn features meetings of the two subsidiary bodies – the Subsidiary Body for Scientific and Technological Advice and the Subsidiary Body for Implementation - which support the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). The negotiations held within the subsidiary bodies usually set the agenda for COP climate meetings later in the year and significantly influence their outcome.
The Bonn conference is also the only opportunity for in-person interaction (outside of the COP climate meetings) between the governments, the high-level climate champions, and stakeholders such as regions, cities, Indigenous Peoples groups, and financing institutions, collectively known as ‘non-state actors.’
As the UN Climate Change High-Level Champion for COP28, Ms. Al Mubarak is responsible for mobilising non-state actors around the goals of the Paris Agreement, which aims to limit levels of greenhouse gasses, and the UAE Consensus agreed to in Dubai last year.
“The UAE Consensus represents an historic breakthrough with nations agreeing to transition away from fossil fuels, tripling renewable energy capacity and focusing on energy efficiency, nature restoration, equitable finance for climate solutions, and halting deforestation by 2030,” said Ms. Al Mubarak. “These goals are ambitious and require the active engagement and commitment from all sectors of society.”
In Bonn, Ms. Al Mubarak’s key objectives will be to help strengthen the collaboration between states and non-state actors and to showcase the climate leadership of regions, cities, and civil society.
“As serious as the challenge in front of us is, there are many positive examples of non-state actors who are taking bold steps towards an equitable, climate-friendly and nature-positive world,” said Ms. Al Mubarak. “I believe these success stories deserve attention as they will inspire others to act, too.”
In addition, accelerating the leadership of cities, regions, businesses, Indigenous Peoples and civil society will give governments the confidence to set the enabling conditions for the next round of National Climate Commitments (NDCs) at COP29, said Ms. Al Mubarak. The NDCs are action plans with specific targets for reducing greenhouse emissions. The Paris Agreement obliges countries to update these climate plans every five years. The next round of NDCs are due early next year, ahead of COP30 in Belem, Brazil.